Weird jump in my score after paying off one card

I had a $4,200 balance on a Capitol One card for like two years. Paid it all off in one shot last month and my score jumped 47 points. Was it really just the utilization dropping that fast or does paying off a single old card hit different? Anyone else see a big jump from one payoff?

2 comments

2 Comments

oscarmurphy8d ago

Ask how old the card was and what the rest of your credit looks like. I'd bet the card was a few years old and your overall utilization was high across all cards before. Paying off that ONE card might have dropped your total utilization way down, plus the age of the account might have helped if it was your oldest line. Was that your only card with a balance, or did it fix a big chunk of your overall debt at once?

thea1437d ago

47 points is a solid jump, I'm happy for you. I paid off a $3,200 Best Buy card that was sitting at 90% utilization for almost three years, and my score went up 52 points in one month. So yeah, it happens. @oscarmurphy makes a good point about total utilization, because that single card payoff dropped my overall utilization from 68% down to 31%. That's a huge swing. The card being old definitely helped me too, it was my second oldest line by about 4 years. Feels good to finally kill that debt, right?