Last year, I asked my sister to add me as an authorized user on her card. She's had it for 7+ years. It's always been maxed out, but she never misses a payment. Once it reported, I saw a score increase of somewhere between 9 and 24 points. (There was alot of activity during this time as I was working hard to repair)
Now I'm done with my repair efforts and my goal is to, going forward, continue working on my own credit. The average age of my own revolving lines is about 9 months, with the oldest being 20 months and the youngest line being 6 months. With her account, my AAoA is about 3 years. My sister recently had a CLI from $700 to $4000 on the card that I'm an authorized user on. Now I'm getting SW alerts and watching her balance climb and climb each month.. she still makes her payments on time, but her utilization on that card is climbing quickly and I know her pretty well - she's going to charge nearly 4K onto that account and then make the minimum payments for the rest of her life. 
I want off that ship. I don't want to continue relying on her account to boost my AAoA, especially while I watch her drive up her utilization. I keep my utilization below 50% at all times and usually it's less than 10%. In 20 months, I haven't paid a single dime of interest on my revolving accounts because I pay them off in full each month, and I take advantage of deferred interest promotions on larger purchases.
Is removing myself as an AU on her account to better my utilization worth the plunge my score will take? If I wait for my own accounts to age before I remove myself, will that hurt less? Is her account helping my AAoA so much that it's worth keeping her 98% utilized card on my report?
TIA!
A maxed out AU card that makes min payments will do you no good, I would ask to be removed.
@Hevj1119 wrote:Last year, I asked my sister to add me as an authorized user on her card. She's had it for 7+ years. It's always been maxed out, but she never misses a payment. Once it reported, I saw a score increase of somewhere between 9 and 24 points. (There was alot of activity during this time as I was working hard to repair)
Now I'm done with my repair efforts and my goal is to, going forward, continue working on my own credit. The average age of my own revolving lines is about 9 months, with the oldest being 20 months and the youngest line being 6 months. With her account, my AAoA is about 3 years. My sister recently had a CLI from $700 to $4000 on the card that I'm an authorized user on. Now I'm getting SW alerts and watching her balance climb and climb each month.. she still makes her payments on time, but her utilization on that card is climbing quickly and I know her pretty well - she's going to charge nearly 4K onto that account and then make the minimum payments for the rest of her life.
I want off that ship. I don't want to continue relying on her account to boost my AAoA, especially while I watch her drive up her utilization. I keep my utilization below 50% at all times and usually it's less than 10%. In 20 months, I haven't paid a single dime of interest on my revolving accounts because I pay them off in full each month, and I take advantage of deferred interest promotions on larger purchases.
Is removing myself as an AU on her account to better my utilization worth the plunge my score will take? If I wait for my own accounts to age before I remove myself, will that hurt less? Is her account helping my AAoA so much that it's worth keeping her 98% utilized card on my report?
TIA!
IMO, no, it is not worth keeping it. The 98% utilization is tanking your score. What you may lose for AAoA will be overshadowed by what you gain for a drastic decrease in utilization.
I'm going to agree with guiness. I'd dump the AU on that one and see what it does.
July 2013 score: EQ FICO 819, TU08 778, EX "806 lender pull 07/26/2013
Goal Score: All Scores 760+, Newest goal 800+
Take the myFICO Fitness Challenge
Current scores after adding $81K in CLs and 2 new cars since July 2013
EQ:809 TU 777 EX 790 Now it's just garden time!
June 2017 update: All scores over 820, just pure gardening now.
@Hevj1119 wrote:Oh! As I asked her to take me off, I found out the CLI was not 4K, and she actually went OVER her limit this month (what's that, 101% utilization?) "only for 3. days, one of which happened to be the closing date" ... yikes! I'm getting off this account asap..
Definitely!
July 2013 score: EQ FICO 819, TU08 778, EX "806 lender pull 07/26/2013
Goal Score: All Scores 760+, Newest goal 800+
Take the myFICO Fitness Challenge
Current scores after adding $81K in CLs and 2 new cars since July 2013
EQ:809 TU 777 EX 790 Now it's just garden time!
June 2017 update: All scores over 820, just pure gardening now.