What is the picture of a FICO in the vicinity 0f 785

[HeavenOhio]

@DollyLama, is there a way to tell from looking at your report that a card has "officially" become inactive?

I have two cards that haven't reported a positive balance in over a year. But they get used each month, and they both report a current date of last payment. I wonder what FICO considers their status to be.

[DollyLama]

No they don't state inactive on reports, nor any alerts that has become inactive,, and I do not get alerts on my Cap 1 that I use during the month, but report 0 balance.So it is deemed active. Although I did on a card I used in November for Christmas, and then again February, that alert on Feb. stated inactive to active. So as long as you use the card regardless if PIF, that perceive it as active.  Same thing happened on a DIY store card I used over the summer and PIF by statement date, got dinged a few points. 

[Anonymous]

Good information tks so much.  I understand everything you wrote.  However, I am inquiring about a situation such as this.  Let's say you have 3 cards.  You want to employ the AZEO strategy, you only use 1 card and keep the utilization rate below 10 percent.  If u do not use lets say 1 or both of the other cards, will that be a problem.  Will the creditor deactivate the card?  Does it lower your score?  I suppose my real question is do you have to at least occsionally use the other 2 cards when employing the AZEO method?   It's not difficult to do, but I read that a contributor stated that his creditor had some sort of problem with the fact that he didn't use one of his cards( may have misread that statement therefore looking for clarification).  Sorry if this questioned was already answered and thanks for all the information.

[Anonymous]

In my opinion, you can solve all of your concerns by (gasp) not implementing AZEO.  Just use your cards naturally and put them on autopay.  If it so happens that a particular card was simply not used for 2, 3, 4 months in a row, then fine.  You will have a short string of zero balances reported.  If it so happened that you had a real need to use each card for a number of months, then you will have a short string of months in which all cards are showing a balance.

AZEO only comes into its own when you are trying to squeeze out every additional scoring point, typically in the 40 days before an important application for credit.  Even then the benefit is only really striking for the mortgage scores.  FICO 8 by comparison doesn't care as much whether you have several small balances reporting or exactly one.

With the "natural use" approach, of course, you will still want to make sure your total utilization stays reasonably low: less than 29% every month and less than 9% at least some months.

[909]

I just had alerts for two AMEX cards going from inactive for 8 months to active. I use them multiple times every month but pay to zero before the statement date except for this last date, i.e. usage doesn’t equate activity if AMEX doesn’t report usage because the balance on the statement date is always zero.

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for the information.  All these new concepts can get confusing.  I appreciate all the comments and advice.  I will use the cards regularly without any specific strategy as long as I keep the util rate below 10 perecent.  One last question please, for anyone willing to give it a go.  I got first my card and used it around 50 percent and I'm sure it got reported at a 50 percent util rate but that was the first month and I paid it in full.  I did not know that the closing date was was literally weeks away from the due date and was not knowledgeable about the closing date's significance.  Will that months util rate follow me around for months or years.  Do they look at a month with a high util rate and ding you for it even if it was once and it was months down the road (prospective new creditors).

[DollyLama]

Yes a creditor will after sometime maybe a year? of no use can just close your account. This will still stay on your report for 10 years but eventually age off, the drawback is if you had a decent size credit limit, it no longer is factored in utilization. Say card 1 has $1000 CL,  card 2 $700, card 3 $1000 , total is 2700, you never used card 3 and creditor closes account, now you are at total credit line of $1700. So yes, I would take a ding of 5 or 6 pts if need be to keep the account open every 4-6 months and you can till employ AZEO with the card of your choosing. It will give me a longer credit history the more years it remains open. The only time I would recommend not caring if creditor closes your account, or you decide to close the account, is if it is not your oldest card you have opened by several years, and has some type of annual fee often subprimes $99 yrly with a credit line that never raises.  

I have one now that is sock drawered, haven't used in over 9 months, may let it just close out, it is not my oldest card, doesn't give me any perks other than a charge, and not a company that gives credit line increases without a hard pull inquiry. I've also gained credit line increases with cards with perks, cashback, that really makes this card obsolete for me right now.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymouswrote:

Thank you all for the information.  All these new concepts can get confusing.  I appreciate all the comments and advice.  I will use the cards regularly without any specific strategy as long as I keep the util rate below 10 perecent.  One last question please, for anyone willing to give it a go.  I got first my card and used it around 50 percent and I'm sure it got reported at a 50 percent util rate but that was the first month and I paid it in full.  I did not know that the closing date was was literally weeks away from the due date and was not knowledgeable about the closing date's significance.  Will that months util rate follow me around for months or years.  Do they look at a month with a high util rate and ding you for it even if it was once and it was months down the road (prospective new creditors).

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No.  Utilization has no memory in all current and past FICO models.  So, for example, you could have a really high utilization for three months in a row (85% say on all cards), but if you then paid almost all your CC debt off it would be (from FICO's perspective) as if your cards had always had a low utilization.

There are still many good reasons to avoid ultra-high utilizations -- e.g. some CC issuers will get spooked by that and close your card or take other adverse action.  But long term score impact is not one of them.

[HeavenOhio]

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@909wrote:
I just had alerts for two AMEX cards going from inactive for 8 months to active. I use them multiple times every month but pay to zero before the statement date except for this last date, i.e. usage doesn’t equate activity if AMEX doesn’t report usage because the balance on the statement date is always zero.

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I've let my AMEX card report zero for two consecutive months, which is something I've never done before. I wonder if that's enough to make the card inactive.

[Anonymous]

what if any are the consequences of a card reporting inactive on credit reports?  Will this adversely affect scores?