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How do we compute AAoA

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HeavenOhio
Senior Contributor

Re: How do we compute AAoA

Thanks for the info, BBS. It looks like an alternative way to compute this would be to do the whole thing in months, then divide by 12.

 

myFICO would make this a whole lot easier if they'd just give us our AAoAs. That way, we'd only have to do the math if we wanted to know the implications of adding or dropping something.

Message 11 of 17
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: How do we compute AAoA


@HeavenOhio wrote:

Thanks for the info, BBS. It looks like an alternative way to compute this would be to do the whole thing in months, then divide by 12.

 

myFICO would make this a whole lot easier if they'd just give us our AAoAs. That way, we'd only have to do the math if we wanted to know the implications of adding or dropping something.


How interesting.  It's been a long time since I was a subscriber to one of the myFICO products.  But I figured that they supplied their customers with the basic factors on their reports: total utilization, AAoA, Age of Oldest Account, etc.

 

myFICO doesn't give you a summary page that tells you what your AAoA is?  Most other credit monitoring services do that.

 

If you have not signed up with credit.com, you can get your AAoA there.  It's free and based on Experian data.  Karma gives you your AAoA but their summary page uses a bad calculator (one that ignores closed accounts) so definitely don't rely on what Karma says about age.

Message 12 of 17
HeavenOhio
Senior Contributor

Re: How do we compute AAoA

I just found it, but it's buried.

 

Log in, and hit Scores in the menu. In the FICO 8 Score Ingredients box, hit "Length of Credit History." At that point, you'll be able to see your average account age in months for each report.

 

In the Report section, you don't get the account age, but you do get the date the accunt was opened. You can figure out the age of each individual account from that.

 

The calcualtions I did last night were two months off, but I know where those two months came from. One month was because the report is almost a month old. The other came from giving myself credit for a month that FICO hasn't counted yet. When my report updates later this week, I'll re-calculate so my method matches the numbers that myFICO provides. That'll allow me to have more accurate numbers if I want to know how my AAoA might change if something is added or dropped.

 

I have both Credit Karma and Credit.com. I did the calculations a few weeks ago and was able to match Karma's. I haven't tried it with Credit.com data.

Message 13 of 17
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: How do we compute AAoA

I am very surprised to hear that your calculations matched Karma's.  Karma's AAoA calculator ignores closed accounts, which is not how FICO works (or even Vantage).  The only way your AAoA should be the same as Karma's is if (by chance) your closed accounts just happen to have the same average age as your open accounts.

Message 14 of 17
HeavenOhio
Senior Contributor

Re: How do we compute AAoA

I matched Karma's calculation by trial and error. Smiley Happy It took a couple of different calculations to work. Since FICO is the more important score, I probably won't fiddle with account ages on Karma anymore.

 

It's probably good for people to figure that trial and error is likely to be part of the process when doing this for the first time. Whether it's VantageScore or FICO account ages, it's easy to be off by a month or so the first time you try to do it. Trying to match a fresh report will likely simplify things too.

 

Knowing ahead of time that FICO counts closed accounts and VantageScore doesn't will circumvent a bit of confusion too.

Message 15 of 17
Adidas
New Contributor

Re: How do we compute AAoA

Fun fact I discovered when I was making a spreadsheet to calculate my AAoA is that you can calculate your "average start date" and then determine how long ago that was to get your AAoA. Obviously it's simpler and easier to do what people have already described here if you just want to see once what it is but if you aren't planning on adding any new cards and want to be able to think about it over time it's the easier solution for mental math.

For example if you have two credit cards one opened January 2014 and one opened November 2014 then your average start was somewhere around June 2014. June 2014 was less than 3 years ago but more than 2 so your AAoA is 2 years since FICO rounds down.
FICO 08:743 EQ Bankcard from Citi, 764 EX from AmEx, 747 TU from Disc all updated 8/2017

Discover It $8,600 Since 08/2014 // AmEx BCE $23,100 Since 10/2015 // Citi DC $7,000 Since 06/2016 // BoA BBR $1,800 Since 11/2016 // US Bank Cash+ $3,000 Since 11/2016
Message 16 of 17
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: How do we compute AAoA


@HeavenOhio wrote:

 

Knowing ahead of time that FICO counts closed accounts and VantageScore doesn't will circumvent a bit of confusion too.


Actually Vantage 3.0 also counts closed accounts.  It's just that the "summary" software on Karma's front end is extremely old -- so old that it does not even accurately reflect what its own scoring algorithm does.  Credit.com also uses Vantage but it correctly counts closed accounts in its summary page.  Because my three bureaus are identical for age-related factors, I sign on to Credit.com if I want to know what my AAoA is.

Message 17 of 17
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