Co-application & Credit Lines?

[Anonymous]

We have 6 credit cards in our household: three are mine, with wife as authorized user, three are hers, with me as authorized user.

If we fill out co-application forms for each other's cards and become joint, can we move the credit lines amongst the cards (5 out of 6 are BofA)?

Do we need to do it on both sides, or is one sufficient? For example, if I become joint on one of her cards, can we merge the credit line to a card where I'm primary and she is AU?

Ideally I'd like to move most of the credit lines to the cards we use most and keep the sock drawered cards with low credit lines.

[Anonymous]

My Advice is to NOT do joint accounts- unless you are in a community property state- even then I still advise against it.

I would be uneasy having most/all of my eggs in one basket at BofA

I am pretty sure Bof A should allow CLI's or re-allocation of your existing CL's. 

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watchnerd wrote:
We have 6 credit cards in our household: three are mine, with wife as authorized user, three are hers, with me as authorized user.

If we fill out co-application forms for each other's cards and become joint, can we move the credit lines amongst the cards (5 out of 6 are BofA)?

Do we need to do it on both sides, or is one sufficient? For example, if I become joint on one of her cards, can we merge the credit line to a card where I'm primary and she is AU?

Ideally I'd like to move most of the credit lines to the cards we use most and keep the sock drawered cards with low credit lines.

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[Anonymous]

We are in a community property state.

Why would you advise against it, even in that case?

[Anonymous]

I am also in a community property state- so her debt is my debt

HOWEVER-

We keep seperate CC's - just to keep stuff simple

In a "life changing event" (I will spare detail beyond this) it is a PITA to un-joint accounts

You both should IMO- have solid and seperate accounts even if you are using HHI to establish these credit lines.

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watchnerd wrote:
We are in a community property state.

Why would you advise against it, even in that case?

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[jackg]

watchnerd,

If you have beenkeeping track of the changes that are supposed to come with FICO08 you will have noticed that "piggybacking" will be disallowed.

The CC companies are encouraging the use of "joint accounts" to replace this practice, in fact, I don't believe you can open an "authorized user" today at most CCC's.

In my experiences I've learned that if someone who's lending you money proposes any type change you can be guareented that it's to their advantage, not yours!

[Anonymous]

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jackg wrote:

The CC companies are encouraging the use of "joint accounts" to replace this practice, in fact, I don't believe you can open an "authorized user" today at most CCC's.

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Exactly the opposite.  AU is allowed virtually everywhere.  CCCs that allow joint are becoming less and less common.

[Anonymous]

Okay, progress report so far:

1. As confirmed elsewhere, Amex won't do joint at all.
2. For BofA, I talked to a CSR who collected all the necessary co-application information on the phone. One of the two cards has already showed up in online banking, so I assume it is approved. The other is either still in progress or was rejected.


Regarding the advisability:

We're in a community proper state, so we share financial obligations, anyway. We already have joint everything where it is not legally prohibited (e.g. retirement accounts). And, call me old fashioned, but I don't want to arrange my life planning for a potential martial dissolution.

[haulingthescoreup]

Just as general information, it's not just the possibility of divorce that makes joint accounts inadvisable. There is also the possibility of bankruptcy.

Many, many, many BK's in the US are due to catastrophic medical bills. Even those who thought they had good medical insurance can find themselves with incomprehensibly high bills due to a devastating injury or illness, or insurance company problems.

When each spouse keeps completely separate credit, if one must declare BK, the other can keep things running during the interim.

With FICO 08 (assuming that it is fully implemented), AU cards will still exist, but they will no longer be counted for the AU's scores. Although I'm currently AU on DH's 19-year-old Discover card for history purposes, I'm actually ready to see the AU stuff stop counting. I just added him (and our younger daughter) as AU's on my Gold card, and he is also AU on the PenFed gas-and-groc card. This re-ages their history, which is doesn't do their scores any good. I'd be just as happy if the whole thing went away at this point. (So far Discover says that I can still go joint on his card if necessary.)

[Anonymous]

Aside from FICO 08, we had another reason, as well. Namely, trying to get the peculiarities of BofA online banking to work with AU accounts.

Our checking account was mine before we got married and we added my wife once we tied the knot. Perhaps because of this, online banking will only show account status for those cards to which my SSN is connected, which also necessitates co-application for those cards on which I was only an AU.

But ill-advised or not, the deed is done now: I've been approved as a co-applicant on the two cards where my wife was primary.