Unfortunately, the credit scores 'measure' how well you utilize credit. Having a lot of available credit helps the score, as does low utilization (<30% of credit limit per account, every month). The reason I make interim CC payments is to keep my utilization low for my primary cards. They also value a variety of credit classes (mortgage, installment loan, credit card, etc.). It used to drive me crazy that my mom, who was terrible with credit cards (racking up debt and not paying it off in full monthly) had a better credit score than I did. The travesties of the rating systems, IMHO, are that they don't consider payments in full for CCs, just the month-end balances for utilization calculations, and they don't consider one's assets. I laughed when I asked for an increase on one card when I was going on vacation, and they said that they thought I had the correct amount of credit based on my income and credit score.