From my last app spree post, I learned a new way to boost my AAoA (thanks a lot to SunriseEarth !!) through adding Capital One authorized user. It turns out to be much more than that so I thought I should share.
My wife and I came to the US about a year ago so we are very new to the credit world. My AAoA is about 5 months and my wife's is about 3 months. Our main weakness is the lack of credit history since we have already optimized all other aspect of our credit profile. If you are interested in full detail about my wife's and my profile."Mod Cut"
After hearding the fact that I can help my wife boost her AAoA by adding her as an AU on my Capital One card, I searched around and found this post. On the same day, I added her as an AU. My card reported a few days ago and I can see that her oldest credit becomes 13 months and her AAoA becomes 7 months !! 1st mission completed !!
Furthermore, we also have a very good friend who has stayed in the U.S. for quite sometimes. After talking to him about this opportunity, he is kind enought to offer to add me as his AU !!. His Capital One card has been opend for almost six years !! His card also reported a few days ago and I can see that my oldest credit and my AAoA changed accordingly too !! 2nd mission completed !! (sorry for a lot of exclamation marks, I am too excited).
Lastly, I noticed that my wife used to have American Express Green Corporate Charge Card at the time when she worked in our home country. It was a corporate card under her name. I have tried to find if she can used it to backdate her new AMEX BCP card or not but I could not find any information regarding non-US corporate card so far. So I thought we should try it ourselves. My wife called AMEX about a week ago, the rep was very nice but he was unable to find my wife's card record despite she provided her account number (he mentioned that it might be in "international card records"). We thought that it was a no-go and did not pursue any action further. However, three days later, my wife got a notification from AMEX that her "replacement card" has been shipped !! She logged in to her online AMEX to find that the "member since" date is now 2007 !!! She got a new card within two days and the member since date was indeed 2007. This card has not reported yet so we will keep our finger crossed but according to posts I found, I think she should get an appropriate backdate and her AAoA should be undoubtedly increase to the roof !!
At this point, we will stay in the garden for a few months. I might need to sneak out on January since I still need to boost my personal AAoA a little bit more so applying for another AMEX card and backdate it to Jan 2013 should help. Meanwhile, my wife's plan is to stay in the garden for at least 6 months then go for CSP and Ink Bold.
Capital One Cash Rewards for New Comer: $1,500 (09/12), Local Credit Union: $1,500 (10/12), Chase Freedom: $1,500 (04/13), Discover IT: $2,100 (04/13), AMEX Gold Charge Card: NPSL (06/13), AMEX BCE: $6,000 (06/13), Chase United Explorer: $6,000 (10/13), Chase Ink Cash: $3,000 (10/13), Barclays Arrival Platinum: $3,000 (10/13), US Bank Flexperk Travel Rewards: $5,000 (01/14), Capital One Venture: $5,000 (01/14), Citi AA World MC: $6,500 (01/14),Citi AA Executive World Elite MC: $5,000 (01/14)
