How many payments is too many in one month?

[TMaG82]

My gf recently got approved for her first credit card, a Chase Freedom albeit one with a $2000 limit. She used to be 100% debit card up until now. Spends on average $200-600/week, sometimes more (lately bought a couch for $800, a LCD TV for $1000, etc). She's worried about utilization so I told her to keep it under 30% and she should be fine. 30% of $2,000 comes to $600. So if she PIF every 2 weeks after payday (15th and last day of every month), would that be ok? What about paying off her card PIF every Friday? Or everytime she reaches $500 balance to PIF then?

 

I definately don't want her to get any AA and since Chase seems to be stingy in terms of Auto CLI, she's going to be asking for a CLI every 6-12 months.

Edited September 9, 2010 by TMaG82

[mannyj]

This is a good question, I was wondering how many payments were too many myself I have an Amex credit card with a $500 limit and because the limit is so low and it being the end of summer I have been traveling a lot which makes it virtually impossible to keep the utilization in a decent range so I find myself paying on it 5-6 times a month, is this viewed in Amex eyes as a bad thing?

[hinklesc]

Find out when it reports (usually statement), and make a payment day before (so reported utilization is low).

 

I would also make payments when it gets close to Max to make available more line.

[hdporter]

Chase doesn't sweat mid-cycle utilization, nor do they report anything to the CRA's other than statement balance, so I wouldn't make more than one payment per cycle. I'd go with a payment for the current outstanding balance a week before the new statement, which should be sufficient to meet the due date.

 

She'll still show some balance at statement date, but for someone with new credit, that's likely a good thing to show.

[Rorer_714]

When I had the Citi Cash Returns card I would make 2 or 3 payments in one day. Never had a problem.

 

With Chase I have made 4 or 5 payments in a cycle and no problems.