Fluffy is right. Your score will be optimized if you have one card reporting a small balance (anywhere between $5 and $20 to make it simple) with all othe cards reporting $0.
It sounds like your cards are currently all at $0. This involves a fairly sharp scoring penalty (20 points?). You plan to correct this by making a small charge on one card.
The card you propose using reports its balance (you believe) today. Is that because the statement has not been generated but you think it will print tonight?
It's very unlikely that your plan will get you a positive dollar amount on your reports by Monday. Two reasons:
(1) Typically the balance that the CC issuer reports will include only those charges that have posted. The charge you make today will be pending for a good 24 hours at least -- it may not post till Monday. So the balance that is reported tonight will still be $0.
(2) Even if the CC issuer did report a positive balance, it will typically take at least two business days before the CRAs update their databases. Much more likely would be 2-5 business days. Thus you might well not see the CRA databases updated for a week.
The best plan is to postpone your Chase applications, get your CCs reporting properly (which sounds like may take a month now or even 5-6 weeks) and then apply.
