I have several credit cards. GJS and I only use one regularly and pay it off as we make purchases. This is the Chase Freedom credit card for anyone interested in the specifics. I've been looking at my credit score lately on creditkarma.com and am not pleased that my credit utilization score has a grade of C. I decided to pull out my four other major credit cards (Platinum Citi card, Discover, Disney Chase and Capitol One) and make small purchases on each of them this past weekend. Most of them had not been activated so I first had to make a few phone calls to put them in working order.
Only one of these cards has posted my purchase (Citi card). The other three cards are still pending. Then I discovered today that I am not allowed to pay off the balance until February 18th on the Citi card. On my Chase Freedom card I can may off the balance every three days. Seems awfully inconvenient to me. Not to mention none of these cards give me cash back like the Chase Freedom card.
And to add insult to injury, apparently I will only be credited increased credit card utilization on my credit report if there is a balance present at the time the credit card company reports my usage to the credit reporting agencies. If all those cards send my information after I've payed off my balance it will appear that I didn't use them at all. Frustrating. So I think the moral of this story is I cannot focus too much energy on increasing my credit score. I had a negative mark fall off my report last week (1 hard credit inquiry during the past 2 years) and was pleased to see that my score increased. Maybe I got greedy for more.
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