Does being an AU help your Utilization?

[onepointatatime]

I did some searching on this forum and from what I read so far from old posts, the answer seems to be yes but I just want to make sure, since I'm considering being added as an AU to someone's AMEX.

Does becoming an AU on say, a card from a friend who has a 20k limit on the card - does it boost my 'denominator' portion of the UTL calculation, in other words does it add 20k to my total available credit?

Another question - if my friend who adds me as an AU has an AMEX MSD of 1995, would I get that reporting as 1995 as well on my CR, thus boosting my AAoA?  Or would they only go by *my* AMEX MSD, which is 2007 (on a closed/co'd account)

Thanks in advance!

[onepointatatime]

Anyone?

[AndySoCal]

The answer to the first question depends on which FICO score model is being used. The older FICO socre model the impact of an AU account is greater than with the 08 model due to FICO change in the score model.   The second question both yours and friends would show if you were added as an AU. I have heard the some underwriting  programs do not factor in AU cards in making their credit decision.

[Revelate]

What Andy said: AU's are more often discounted than not under FICO 8, even FICO 04 for anything important usually it's ignored but if it is counted, yes it does count for your aggregate CL from a FICO score perspective.

Regarding Amex ACM's, it goes by your MSD, not his.  Also you don't inherit his history, you start from scratch with Amex... though a brand new tradeline with a MSD of 2007 doesn't completely suck if you can't qualify for an Amex charge card on your own.

[Cstone87]

Algorithms for internal scoring such as the above Mod stated, play a very crucial role. Holistically for example Chase using its own proprietary system, ARS being one such databasing come up with its own model. AU are discounted or ignored all together. Amegy, Chase, Texas Capital Bank, and US Bank are known to do this frequently. Especially when manually reviewed.