@Anonymous wrote:
@tacpoly wrote:
@Aim_High wrote:Well, I was going to start a new thread asking my question, but this one is so similar I decided to post it here. I'm no scoring expert on the technicalities, so much of this discussion went over my head. But my question involved FICO impacts on very high credit limits.
I'm actually shocked at discussions that limits in the $25K to $35K range can start to reach exclusionary levels in some scoring models, although it appears they are the older models when limits were typically lower. It's a little disconcerting, to be honest. I had heard that limits of around $50K and perhaps $100K were sometimes excluded from utilization calculations and could impact FICO scoring but never imagined it could dip so low.
Specifically, I've seen several approvals or limit consolidations in the range of $50K to $100K+ in the recent months. I've considered doing some consolidation of limits and wanted to be knowledgable of the potential fallout from doing it. If calculations are affected as low as $35K, I may already have more of a problem developing than I even knew, but so far my FICO 8/9 and Bankcard 8/9 scores seem intact, as reported by my lenders.
My current highest limits are BofA Cash Rewards $81.9K, Chase Sapphire Reserve $55K, Discover $50K, PenFed PCR $41.7K, Citi Costco $36K, and USAA $35K. And I have one charge card, the AMEX Gold. So, seven out of my current 20 cards are either NPSL or at/above $35K. I was looking at rearranging Chase and/or Bank of America limits. My TCL with Chase is $138.4 and TCL with BofA is $99.9.
I like higher limits and less complexity. Rewards are good, but I'm not one to go to extremes with rewards optimization. So my long-term objective was a fairly select group of cards with higher limits, mostly starting at a bare minimum of $25K and hopefully adding several more than I currently have at $50K+. So having 12-15 cards would be more than enough.
My current $10K-ish limit cards were planned to be used for limit consolidation (Chase Marriott, Chase Hyatt, Wells Fargo Cash Wise.) My only sub-$10K card is my Chase INK which doesn't report on my personal credit and sits at $9K. Now, I'm wondering if this is a strategy that could cause complications. Even if I open or consolidate some cards into higher-limit accounts, should I purposefully keep open and active a certain portion of my cards at lower limits? Is there one or more credit-limit triggers that impact utilization or FICO that I should be aware of?
Comments, @Anonymous, @Thomas_Thumb, @tacpoly?
Also tags to other forum high-limit experts: @coldfusion and @FinStar.
From what I understand from this thread (and feel free to correct me):
- Fico8 and Fico 9 considers all revolving primary cards, no matter the limit, when it comes to utilization and revolving account balances. AU and charge cards are not considered.
- Fico 98 scoring considers only cards below a certain limit (currently narrowed to somewhere between 31K and 34.9K) when it comes to utilization and balance.- Fico mortgage scoring sees charge cards and revolving cards (primary and AU) up to a CL of $34.9 and maybe higher. Although it seems to be insensitive to my $45K limit revolver.
- All accounts count with regard to # of accounts with balances for all scoring models (is this right?)
So, it seems if you're not going to do anything that would require institutions to look at your mortgage scores, having all high limit cards probably won't hurt. If you want to be safe, keep 2 cards below $35K. I've always had high limit cards (my first credit limits when I applied for cards after I turned 18 were all well above $50K). Although I didn't know my scores until recently, I never had an issue getting a loan or credit cards (I did lower limits after identity theft and fraudulent charges).
@tacpoly almost.
For versions 8 and 9, charge card utilization is not considered and there is no known cut off range. However authorized user utilization may or may not be considered, depending on the anti-abuse algorithm, which excludes suspicious authorized user accounts. This began with version 8.
Fico 98 (EX2) is a mortgage score and considers all accounts, primary and authorized user. It disregards the utilization and balances of revolvers with a CL of somewhere over $31,000 yet below $34,900. Chargecard utilization is considered in a separate special H/HB Metric. This is the only algorithm that appears to take it into account. The corresponding versions from EQ & TU are not in use.
Fico 04 (scores 3, 4, & 5) EX3 is not used by many. TU4 & EQ5 are mortgage scores and fully count both primary and authorized user accounts. chargecard utilization is not considered, nor is any revolver with a CL of $35,000 or higher.
all open accounts with a balance count as an account with a balance on all models.
@Aim_High To be honest, all you need is one revolver with a credit limit of $31,000 or less to use as an AZEO card to avoid the
AZ loss on all 3 mortgage scores.
If you're extra paranoid have 2, but if you really got in a pinch, you could always request a CLD, you know if your only sub $50,000 account was a Sam's M/C and Synchrony pulled one of their specials. 😉
Really @tacpoly has a beautiful profile, everything is large except for the one AU that will now work perfectly to avoid the AZ loss on all three bureaus. As a matter of fact, have you posted a balance yet to see how high your scores jump @tacpoly ?
But seriously @Aim_High, it's great you're utilization is hid with big cards, your only issue is you need one low limit card just to show revolving activity, so you don't get the point loss from all zero.
So really, all you need is one revolver that is $31,000 or less CL, just one. As a matter fact, I recall you *%@&$#!£? about one lower CL you got somewhere at the end of your run somewhere, right? Well turn that frown upside down and make that you're AZEO card! You need one lower limit card, it serves it's AZEO purpose. Other than that, don't expend any more brain cells on it, lol😉
I am late on this reply, but my own experiments with both my $90k BOA card and the $99.9k BOA card that I am an authorized user on is that they have caused scoring changes on FICO 8 for both myself and P2 when doing very large balance transfers (like $20-30k range), most likely caused by passing a 5% or 10% aggregate revolving threshold before the transferred balances reported as paid. I verified that it is repeatable and isolated to that one factor since a revolving limit ceiling on FICO 8 has fascinated and intrigued me for a few years and I figured if there was a way to stash the balances on extremely high limit cards and enjoy 840-850 scores while paying those balances down, why not? 😂
I don't have any data points to share concerning older models such as mortgage scores since I am like 150 points above the minimum needed for the best VA rates, and my interest was really dedicated to FICO 8 since I seem to keep coming up with DPs dispelling $50k, $60k, $70k, etc. numbers that have been floated in the past.
As for the AU accounts, I wonder if those not seeing things change are experiencing a loss of the all-zero AU penalty (something I did not even know existed until recently) combined with an offset for the increased balance on the same card, effectively negating any changes since there was both a plus and a minus?
@Anonymous wrote:KiB also keep in mind that $20k-$30k shifts in reported dollars outside of utilization percentage can impact scores simply based on the raw dollar amounts. Based on what some other members have posted, such a balance change could cross multiple thresholds just from the dollars associated with the change.
While that's certainly possible, that wouldn't happen if they were being excluded from revolving scoring metrics though. Unless I am missing something?
@Anonymous wrote:
@K-in-Boston wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@tacpoly wrote:
@Aim_High wrote:Well, I was going to start a new thread asking my question, but this one is so similar I decided to post it here. I'm no scoring expert on the technicalities, so much of this discussion went over my head. But my question involved FICO impacts on very high credit limits.
I'm actually shocked at discussions that limits in the $25K to $35K range can start to reach exclusionary levels in some scoring models, although it appears they are the older models when limits were typically lower. It's a little disconcerting, to be honest. I had heard that limits of around $50K and perhaps $100K were sometimes excluded from utilization calculations and could impact FICO scoring but never imagined it could dip so low.
Specifically, I've seen several approvals or limit consolidations in the range of $50K to $100K+ in the recent months. I've considered doing some consolidation of limits and wanted to be knowledgable of the potential fallout from doing it. If calculations are affected as low as $35K, I may already have more of a problem developing than I even knew, but so far my FICO 8/9 and Bankcard 8/9 scores seem intact, as reported by my lenders.
My current highest limits are BofA Cash Rewards $81.9K, Chase Sapphire Reserve $55K, Discover $50K, PenFed PCR $41.7K, Citi Costco $36K, and USAA $35K. And I have one charge card, the AMEX Gold. So, seven out of my current 20 cards are either NPSL or at/above $35K. I was looking at rearranging Chase and/or Bank of America limits. My TCL with Chase is $138.4 and TCL with BofA is $99.9.
I like higher limits and less complexity. Rewards are good, but I'm not one to go to extremes with rewards optimization. So my long-term objective was a fairly select group of cards with higher limits, mostly starting at a bare minimum of $25K and hopefully adding several more than I currently have at $50K+. So having 12-15 cards would be more than enough.
My current $10K-ish limit cards were planned to be used for limit consolidation (Chase Marriott, Chase Hyatt, Wells Fargo Cash Wise.) My only sub-$10K card is my Chase INK which doesn't report on my personal credit and sits at $9K. Now, I'm wondering if this is a strategy that could cause complications. Even if I open or consolidate some cards into higher-limit accounts, should I purposefully keep open and active a certain portion of my cards at lower limits? Is there one or more credit-limit triggers that impact utilization or FICO that I should be aware of?
Comments, @Anonymous, @Thomas_Thumb, @tacpoly?
Also tags to other forum high-limit experts: @coldfusion and @FinStar.
From what I understand from this thread (and feel free to correct me):
- Fico8 and Fico 9 considers all revolving primary cards, no matter the limit, when it comes to utilization and revolving account balances. AU and charge cards are not considered.
- Fico 98 scoring considers only cards below a certain limit (currently narrowed to somewhere between 31K and 34.9K) when it comes to utilization and balance.- Fico mortgage scoring sees charge cards and revolving cards (primary and AU) up to a CL of $34.9 and maybe higher. Although it seems to be insensitive to my $45K limit revolver.
- All accounts count with regard to # of accounts with balances for all scoring models (is this right?)
So, it seems if you're not going to do anything that would require institutions to look at your mortgage scores, having all high limit cards probably won't hurt. If you want to be safe, keep 2 cards below $35K. I've always had high limit cards (my first credit limits when I applied for cards after I turned 18 were all well above $50K). Although I didn't know my scores until recently, I never had an issue getting a loan or credit cards (I did lower limits after identity theft and fraudulent charges).
@tacpoly almost.
For versions 8 and 9, charge card utilization is not considered and there is no known cut off range. However authorized user utilization may or may not be considered, depending on the anti-abuse algorithm, which excludes suspicious authorized user accounts. This began with version 8.
Fico 98 (EX2) is a mortgage score and considers all accounts, primary and authorized user. It disregards the utilization and balances of revolvers with a CL of somewhere over $31,000 yet below $34,900. Chargecard utilization is considered in a separate special H/HB Metric. This is the only algorithm that appears to take it into account. The corresponding versions from EQ & TU are not in use.
Fico 04 (scores 3, 4, & 5) EX3 is not used by many. TU4 & EQ5 are mortgage scores and fully count both primary and authorized user accounts. chargecard utilization is not considered, nor is any revolver with a CL of $35,000 or higher.
all open accounts with a balance count as an account with a balance on all models.
@Aim_High To be honest, all you need is one revolver with a credit limit of $31,000 or less to use as an AZEO card to avoid the
AZ loss on all 3 mortgage scores.
If you're extra paranoid have 2, but if you really got in a pinch, you could always request a CLD, you know if your only sub $50,000 account was a Sam's M/C and Synchrony pulled one of their specials. 😉
Really @tacpoly has a beautiful profile, everything is large except for the one AU that will now work perfectly to avoid the AZ loss on all three bureaus. As a matter of fact, have you posted a balance yet to see how high your scores jump @tacpoly ?
But seriously @Aim_High, it's great you're utilization is hid with big cards, your only issue is you need one low limit card just to show revolving activity, so you don't get the point loss from all zero.
So really, all you need is one revolver that is $31,000 or less CL, just one. As a matter fact, I recall you *%@&$#!£? about one lower CL you got somewhere at the end of your run somewhere, right? Well turn that frown upside down and make that you're AZEO card! You need one lower limit card, it serves it's AZEO purpose. Other than that, don't expend any more brain cells on it, lol😉
I am late on this reply, but my own experiments with both my $90k BOA card and the $99.9k BOA card that I am an authorized user on is that they have caused scoring changes on FICO 8 for both myself and P2 when doing very large balance transfers (like $20-30k range), most likely caused by passing a 5% or 10% aggregate revolving threshold before the transferred balances reported as paid. I verified that it is repeatable and isolated to that one factor since a revolving limit ceiling on FICO 8 has fascinated and intrigued me for a few years and I figured if there was a way to stash the balances on extremely high limit cards and enjoy 840-850 scores while paying those balances down, why not? 😂
I don't have any data points to share concerning older models such as mortgage scores since I am like 150 points above the minimum needed for the best VA rates, and my interest was really dedicated to FICO 8 since I seem to keep coming up with DPs dispelling $50k, $60k, $70k, etc. numbers that have been floated in the past.
As for the AU accounts, I wonder if those not seeing things change are experiencing a loss of the all-zero AU penalty (something I did not even know existed until recently) combined with an offset for the increased balance on the same card, effectively negating any changes since there was both a plus and a minus?
@K-in-Boston yeah I've never known of any exclusion from versions 8 and higher.
and if the authorized user account is counting on version 8, you're right there could be a plus and minus, but the likelihood of those being the same magnitude isn't very likely, I don't believe. I would be more tempted to believe the AU account was discounted by the anti-abuse algorithm in that scenario.
While I definitely tested out HELOCs and can confirm no changes for large ones (and verified by FICO during the recent AMA), I'm inclined to believe there may not be an upper limit for revolving credit card products in 8.