Generally speaking, AU accounts help if the tradeline is in good standing, and has an age much longer than your other cards, or if one of the cards has a significant CL above your own.
In your case, you each have at least 3 revolving lines, and the AU doesn't help you or him in the next year, and *might* be a slight detriment even when it comes to manual underwriting when you both try to upgrade your cards in a year or more. More access to credit is not always better.
At best it's a wash, at worst it might be slightly damaging. The Best Buy card is the probably the only one likely making any significant difference on your husbands score right now because of it's more advanced age (and even then it's minimal currently), and that will be devalued as his own accounts age.
I wouldn't bother trying to tweak things with AU accounts at all in your situation unless you're getting on one of your parents cards or similar options if you have that capability and they have the requisite good tradelines.
@Anonymous wrote:Hi, I have recently found this forum and its been a big help. I just wish I had found it sooner. Anyway, my husband and I are just starting to build our credit, and I have some questions.
We are Joint Owners on an auto loan though our Credit Union that was opened in 5/2009 and will be paid off in a few months. This is our oldest account and unfortunately does not report to Equifax.
My Credit Cards
Barclay Apple -$1200Opened - 12/2011
Walmart Store Card -$700 Opened - 12/2011
Amazon Visa -$500 Opened - 12/2011
Citi Platinum Select - $1000 Opened - 12/2011
Cap One Platinum -$300Opened - 11/2011
Best Buy Mastercard -$300 Opened - 7/2011
My Husbands Credit Cards
Walmart Discover -$1100Opened - 1/2012
Citi Platinum Select -$1000Opened - 1/2012
Cap One Platinum - $500Opened - 12/2011
I have added my husband as an Authorized User on my Best Buy Mastercard, Cap One, and Citi cards. I am not an Authorized User on any of his cards.
We plan on paying all of our cards in full every month, maybe leaving a small balance on 1 card per month. And we will be not apply for any new credit in 2012 and letting out current accounts age. We plan on getting a new car loan in mid 2013. We have no baddies on any of our reports.
Okay now on to my questions -
Should I add my husband as an AU to the rest of my cards? Should he add me to his? Don't think it will matter much credit wise. Your accounts are going to be the same age. You'll have each other's TL but you already have your own good TL's.
If we do add each other, should we do it now, or would it be better to wait a year so the accounts wont be so 'new'? Would this help to avoid 'new account' dings? Wouldn't hurt to let them age a bit before you add.
Does it look bad to be an AU on too many accounts? How many are too many? Not sure about that. Maybe other myFICO experts can chime in.
Would look bad on his report to be an AU on 6 credit cards if he only has 3 of his own cards? I think it would, even though he has 3 of his own 6 AU cards may look suspect to prime lenders.
Any other advice would be welcomed!
@Anonymous wrote:Thanks!
I was afraid adding each other to our cards could possibly have a negative effect on our reports, but I didn't want to miss out on anything if it could help. I guess we will keep our cards separate for a while.
After we garden for while and get our next car loan we would like to get a Visa from our Credit Union, and hopefully get our first big limit card. Will it be better to apply together and make it a joint account, or would it be better to app separately and each have our own account? Does it make any difference?
Nearly the universal advice given here (and FWIW I agree with it) is never to apply jointly for anything, except for a mortgage (and not always in that case either), even when married.
There's a bunch of potentially negative reasons not to do so, but the positive one is simply this: if one of you gets in trouble credit-wise for whatever reason, the other individual has their own credit to be able to work through the household finances if it comes to that. Many cards allow you to list household aggregate income even on an individual application, so there's really no downside on the application process either. Each of you should get your own cards, and really as you look around the forums more, you can probably realize some paths to certain rewards cards which you can achieve in shorter time-frames with two credit histories rather than a single, effectively joint one.
In any event, it's almost always easier to accomplish what you want as a family, credit-wise, being as seperate as possible. I know that's sort of counter-intuitive in a marriage, but financially it makes the most sense.
@Revelate wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:Thanks!
I was afraid adding each other to our cards could possibly have a negative effect on our reports, but I didn't want to miss out on anything if it could help. I guess we will keep our cards separate for a while.
After we garden for while and get our next car loan we would like to get a Visa from our Credit Union, and hopefully get our first big limit card. Will it be better to apply together and make it a joint account, or would it be better to app separately and each have our own account? Does it make any difference?
Nearly the universal advice given here (and FWIW I agree with it) is never to apply jointly for anything, except for a mortgage (and not always in that case either), even when married.
There's a bunch of potentially negative reasons not to do so, but the positive one is simply this: if one of you gets in trouble credit-wise for whatever reason, the other individual has their own credit to be able to work through the household finances if it comes to that. Many cards allow you to list household aggregate income even on an individual application, so there's really no downside on the application process either. Each of you should get your own cards, and really as you look around the forums more, you can probably realize some paths to certain rewards cards which you can achieve in shorter time-frames with two credit histories rather than a single, effectively joint one.
In any event, it's almost always easier to accomplish what you want as a family, credit-wise, being as seperate as possible. I know that's sort of counter-intuitive in a marriage, but financially it makes the most sense.
+1