Last week, I announced the launch of a new eight-part video series on my YouTube channel covering the basics of Miles & Points in Canada.
This week’s installment focuses on credit scores and all the factors that go into calculating your credit score and determining your credit health.
I’ve written about this topic on the blog before, but thought it’d be worth expanding upon in video form, since it tends to be one of the first questions on newcomers’ minds when they first learn that earning huge volumes of points via credit card signup bonuses is something that people actually do.
This is the second video in the overall series, and the planned future videos are as follows:
Without further ado, you can watch “How Does Your Credit Score Work?” below:
If you enjoyed the video, make sure to give it a “Like”, leave a comment, and subscribe to the channel.
And as always, feel free to share it within your circles with anyone whom you think would benefit from learning more about how their credit score works – perhaps your friends and family members who often express concern for whether you’re going to have “bad credit”! 😉
Thank you for posting. Some technical questions for you.
1. Credit utilization also include line of credits or just credit cards? The utilization rate calculated based on the total credit limit and balance of all credit products I have or every single credit product?
2. I heard going over 20% utilization rate is bad but also having 0% rate is worse. Is it true? I have some old credit card that never use but keep to control length of credit history.
Thanks!
Having a high utilization on one credit card can affect your score, even if the overall utilization is low. So it’s best to ensure you’re maintaining a reasonable utilization on all cards. Nonetheless, it’s also not the biggest deal in the world: if you have high utilization one month and bring it back down the next, your credit score will recover.
Having 0% utilization doesn’t help your credit score at all since it doesn’t demonstrate responsible credit usage, but I don’t believe it actively hurts you either. I think it’s fine to leave an old credit card open with zero balance, but it’s also good to sprinkle on a few charges every now and then if you can to let it contribute to the overall credit health.