credit limit utilization

moatmeister

Lets say I had 4 cards eacch with a £1000 limit. I want to spend £800 .From a credit scoring point ofview is it better to put the £800 on one card and leave the others with a zero balance or put £200 on each and spread the payment across all four cards?

jonesMUFCforever

It would make no difference - as long as you were up to date with repayments.

sharpy2010

What are you trying to achieve in each scenario? Are you going to carry a balance for a number of months, or pay the balance in full when it becomes due? What are the APR's for each card?

rachelonna

Agreed, makes no difference. You are still using the same percentage of credit as a total of your total available credit

Ben8282

Can't see it makes any difference unless you want to be nice to the credit card companies and give them all their fair share of your business. A retailer may not be happy if asked to split a single purchase between 4 cards.

cos_2

Let's say you use card A to make the purchase(s). I own card B. When I review your account (or 'credit score' you) I see you haven't used my card for a while. I don't want a to expose my company to unknown debt demand so cut your credit limit to one tenth of what it was. If you'd been using my card within T and Cs I would probably have left your limit alone.

There are so many variables involved, and each card co has its own, dynamic, calculations. I think no-one can give you a definitive answer.

The example above has happened to me (at least I assume the reason for the 90% limit cut was due to non use). However, I have two cards I use very sporadically, sometimes less than once a year and pay off in full - each of these has had limit increases over the years! 'Tis a mystery . . .

moatmeister

The balance would be rolled over for afew months. The question is not apr related, it is about getting the least impact on my credit score. Is it not best to keep balances below a certain cutoff point in relation to the limit on each individual card?