Pay off the one with the highest interest rates first. I tend to let some debt linger on lower rate cards if I know I am going to pull a loan though. It seems that every time I pay my cards 100$ each month my score steadily declines.

What exactly does that mean?

No one knows what it means but its provocative.

So in other words, a baseless and pointless sentiment.

It's gets the people GOING.

Will paying off the smaller balances first motivate you after giving you a sense of accomplishment? This is the idea behind the snowball method.

there is certainly a debt to credit ratio which affects your credit score.

Many of the ideas posed in this thread on how to be picky and game it are complete fucking nonsense. You want low utilization, lot's of old open accounts with very low balance, no late payments. Do that alone and your credit score will be just fine.

The only time that score really matters is when you want a loan for a home or business or something where taking debt with collateral assets actually makes sense. for those the difference between a 750 and an 850 or something isn't even enough to worry about.

Credit score is a measure how you manage credit. If you pay off a card you are no longer using that credit even if it's available.

there is no reason to do this whatsoever.

pay them all off in full before the due date. Never pay credit card interest. If you must carry a balance on a card apply for a new one with 0% intro apr.