Should I request a TL delete on 3 CO Amex accounts, or leave them?

[Anonymous]

I just read that sometimes your score can dramatically DROP by deleting a charged-off tradeline because you lose the age of that account that was contributing to your overall average age of accounts. Wondering if that might be true in my case and might be better to hault my efforts to try and get 3 CO Amex accounts deleted. All 3 Amex accounts are settled/zero balance; charged off status. I only have a total of 12 accounts on my credit history, so these 3 are a good chunk of them. I'm young (only 22) and opened these 3 accounts when I was 15, so they are among my oldest accounts. I also have a Shell gas card that I opened the same year as these Amex accounts, which I still have and is current. Aside from that, I'm a joint account holder on a 16 year old Discover card (with perfect payment history, $15K credit limit and very low utilization).

Right now, according to Credit Karma, my average account age is 8 years and 6 months (I can't remember for sure, but I think it spiked to that, up from an average age of 4 years when I was added as a joint account holder on the 16 year old Discover card). So I would guess that my average account age would take a dive if I get those (3) 7-year-old Amex accounts deleted.

Question is: Don't you think it would be better to get 3 charged-off accounts deleted (even though they were paid, which is why I think I might be able to get them deleted) as opposed to leaving them on my report for the age history?

[Shogun]

Personally I prefer a clean account even if it did drop my AAoA a bit and my score.  A clean report has more ability to grow than a dirty one.  The only exception I have to this is minor derogs, such as 30 day lates.  

On another note, CK only counts the AAoA of open accounts.

[Anonymous]

Thanks! That's what I was thinking, too! Would just be so nice to know that I have ZERO negative accounts on my CR and that my CR is clean as a whistle.

What is CK?

[emend23]

ck - Credit Karma

[Anonymous]

Oh, gotcha. Thanks!

So the AAoA on CK would show what my actual AAoA is then WITHOUT those 3 CO Amex accounts. Interesting. I guess 8 year average isn't too bad and that's what I'll have without those Amex accounts. Wonder what the AAoA is WITH those accounts as I'm assuming while CK doesn't take closed accounts into consideration of the AAoA, lendors/creditors do??