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I found Globe & Mail article What qualifies as a good credit score? that explores the relevance of credit score differences.

A woman was surprised to find out that her boyfriend had a higher credit score of 846. She only had 783. She was surprised because he used to have much more debt which has since been paid off.

According to a vice-president of client solutions at Equifax Canada, the difference in their scores is not meaningful to lenders. Lenders consider scores above 700 to be excellent.

Excellent is excellent. There is no so-so excellent, average excellent, or outstanding excellent!

I think they use numbers because the FICO scoring model, for example, churns out a numeric score. The raw numeric score allows lenders to set their own boundaries for poor, fair, good, and excellent.

The numeric score also allows lenders to have some discretion. If excellent were 700+ and an applicant scored 698, a lender could then have a closer look.

I suspect a higher score is better as far as the model is concerned. But, between those borrowers who have a score of 700 and higher, there may be no statistically significant difference in the default rates, which is what lenders care about.

In school, 100% is considered better than 95% in a test. But, there may not be much difference in the capabilities or outcome between the 95% student and the 100% one.

The willingness to use an alternate CC for returns may be relatively new. I recall that it used to be impossible to do this, but recently I did it with something I returned to Lands' End. I no longer possessed the original CC and they allowed me to put the refund on an new card. A few years ago, they wouldn't let me do this and insisted on sending a gift card instead.