@superM1 wrote:
I have two AMEX cards (PRG and BCP) I just got, and I've backdated them to previous accounts in 2005 when I closed my last AMEX.
Before my AAOA was ~ 1.5 years.
I'm guessing this should be a considerable boost. Should I just get a few more AMEX cards, and if so, which ones?
Also - should I cancel some of my other cards? (Chase UME $5k, Citi TYP $3k, Discover $1k, BoFA TR $1k, BoFA Student $900). Perhaps the Discover and one of the BoFAs?
So is that list all of your other cards, or just a sample? If it's all, then your total age of accounts is ~ 7*1.5=10.5, you have now added say 15.5 years total (assuming that these are fairly new), so your new total age is 26 years, divided by 7 cards, so ~ 3.5 years is your new AAoA. If you have other types of accounts, these may also need to be included.
If you have more cards, the impact is less.
Cancelling other cards doesn't impact AAoA for up to 10 years, open and closed accounts are both counted, so that's not a reason. Good reasons are:
1) AF
2) Too much hassle to worry about.
Closing impacts available CL, and thus may hurt the score because of increased utilization.
Should you get more (backdated) Amex? If you have a real need for the card (many of which have AF), then of course yes. But getting cards that you might not really need just to increase the AAoA doesn't seem so worthwhile to me. But Ficoscore chasers here may disagree!
