I have no idea and no desire to speculate beyond the observation that today’s thread is surreal.
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Always take the increases! In fact, there are certain tricks to request CLIs with certain banks. Google “Amex 3x CLI”, for instance.
I started credit hacking (millions of points and hundreds of accounts) many years before I got into lease hacking so I’ve been in the game for like a decade now. If you ever have questions, PM me!
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I googled and it said that improving the utilization would increase my score by 20-30 points. Since I am already in high 700, what is the point? I can’t see any benefit from going to say 770 to 800 score. I think all leases and mortgages give you the best rate at 740 correct? All the sites say the best mortgage rate is 740 to 760 only. So what is the point of an 800+ score since a mortgage is likely the biggest credit you will need?
Update:
Application has been submitted
Good question. Maintaining a score in the high 700s allows you a lot more flexibility with things like utilization, ability to open new accounts and add credit to existing ones, and score the best loan rates as you mentioned. I think the highest tier 1 requirement I’ve ever seen is like 750, so you’re correct in that there isn’t a major need to push for more than that.
However, one thing to keep in mind is each of the three bureaus will pump out different scores. Meaning that it’s safest to push for 800 so that you’re in the clear when you eventually need it. It would suck if Equifax showed you at 750, but TransUnion pulled a 729, and then suddenly you find yourself with a tier 2 mortgage rate because the lender uses TransUnion. Better safe than sorry.
As a general rule of thumb, it’s always healthiest to keep under 1% utilization. One way you can do that is pay off debts early - ie pay credit card bills a couple times a month to keep that utilization low. It allows you the ability to continue opening new lines and adding to existing credit lines. And because new accounts lower your average age of credit, keeping low utilization is important.
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Update:
Application has been approved.
Car is no-longer available
I have under 1% utilization and my credit score dropped this past month. Odd thing is I do have 2 car loans and a mortgage, but it’s reporting a lack of revolving information. I guess I need to keep a small balance to get my score back to a perfect 850.
Doesn’t “revolving” mean credit cards, and mortgage and car loans are not?
The 2nd note under “Lack of recent bank/national revolving information” says “mix of credit cards, loans and mortgages…”
“Bank/National”, so they consider it different from #1. But I don’t know.
Well it’s a fun game to see how high you can get it. I’m in the 810s and yeah no better rates than 770s, but what the hell?
Also it gives you some insurance. You forget to pay a cell phone bill on time or something stupid like that which dings you 40 points. Going from 810 to 770 won’t affect anything. Going from 770 to 730 will.
Also don’t take those items affecting your score too seriously. I once had the same item, verbatim, affect my score negatively and positively. Pay your bills on time, don’t max out any credit cards, apply for credit only when absolutely necessary and your score will be in the high 700s or early 800s.
And like all other systems in the world, there are mistakes made all the time. At some point a human has to enter this info. And humans make errors. So sometimes your credit card is counted as a mortgage and your mortgage is counted as a credit card. Many times there are missing items on a credit report or the numbers are wrong. You’re talking about billions of transactions that are kept track of yearly by the 3 bureaus. Even a 1% error rate could affect millions credit scores. Which goes back to don’t get stuck in the weeds of credit scores, just use credit wisely and your score will be high.
But you are smarter than that and never done anything like this, right?
FFS dude, just let it go.
Just making a point, dude. You are not perfect, apparently
Generally AMEX pulls from Experian, so this is just one of three bureaus. Sign up for Credit Karma to get a better picture for TransUnion and Equifax.
What AMEX is trying to tell you is that you have zero credit utilization right now. This means your lending status with your revolving credit line is “inactive”. I’m assuming that if you pulled up your last couple of statements, you probably have had zero activity. So the next time you go out to eat or go grocery shopping, use one of your AMEX cards to keep that credit line active. Or literally go buy a $0.50 chocolate at 7-11 to show account activity.
Many times, if banks see that you haven’t utilized your credit line with them for a couple of years, they’ll actually close your account due to inactivity. I’ve had it happen once to one of my oldest accounts and it was a huge dip (and so on that day I decided I needed to make a spreadsheet of all of my accounts). Something to keep in mind.
I do use my AMEX though (at least $1k/month), but I do always pay it off before the statement closes.
OK so in this case what you’d have to do is not pay it off before the statement closes. I normally do that too to keep utilization under 1%, but mostly just for larger debts >$1,000. If you have a card that has like a $50 charge on it, don’t pay it off early. That’s probably a confusing statement, so to clarify – I’m not suggesting you carry a balance and pay interest on a late payment. But if your statement closes on 9/15, for example, and the minimum payment is due 9/30, let it close with a balance on 9/15 and then go in on 9/16 and pay it off in full. That way, your statement shows that there was a balance at closing.
From personal experience, it is far from over.
My application was approved four minutes after submission. Stage 2 documents were emailed (and received) the next day. I added insurance for the vehicle I was assuming, and all paperwork was completed and mailed by Priority Express the day after approval. BMW received it the following Monday and reviewed both my and the Transferor’s paperwork which found no errors on either. They supposedly requested the paper title from the DMV the day they emailed the Stage 2 documents. Three weeks later, the paper title still had not been received by BMW Financial Services due to a backlog of such requests in California. I confirmed this by calling the Sacramento DMV main office which said they had not received the request 20 days later. The Transferor canceled the assumption the next day.
So you are far from the finish line. Perhaps in a state where an electronic title is valid, yes. But those tales of three-day transfers you read about online are over (at least in California). You cannot expedite the process. You are most likely looking at the end of September (at the earliest) before the assumption is complete. And you better hope the Transferee does not decide to back out.
Finally, I hope (for the Transferee’s sake) you are not offered a down you were initially looking for from another and do not cancel the deal yourself to get it. That is what happened in my case. The Transferor, who never asked for a down payment, was offered one by someone else. They chose to renege on our deal out of greed and take it. While I lost time and money, they gained financially.
If I were the Transferee in this arrangement, I would be holding my breath until the keys were in my hand. The lesson I learned was that assumptions are only as good as the Transferor’s moral character. You, from what I gathered, had that with @steve2. Others are not as fortunate.
It took two weeks for my 1st BMW, the 2nd BMW took less than a week though. Both were in CA.
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