topic Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA in Credit Cards

Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

IWOL — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:20:29 GMT

Im not saying that its a good idea to do this but whats to stop someone form opening several of the no annual fee AMEX cards and then closing them say 6 months in and then open 2 more a few months later and repeat and so on strictly for the purpose of increasing AA0A at a much more rapid rate?

Obviously this is assuming the person has an MS date that is atleast twice their current AAoA.

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:24:24 GMT

Nothing actually prevents it, but Amex would have to continue to be willing to issue cards with that on your record, and you would also be getting a lot of inqs.

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

CreditCuriosity — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:26:26 GMT

Always wondered this as well... You can create yourself a very indestructiabe AAoA if you have a old MSD date...At some point I guess once you have thick enough file AAoA gets pretty indestructiable anyways

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:27:02 GMT

When talking to analysts about cards when trying to recon, they seem to question more about the number of inquiries on the report than give you the "Hey...your AAoA is 4.1 years" line. How much does AAoA actually matter?

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:36:59 GMT

@MstrPTato wrote:
When talking to analysts about cards when trying to recon, they seem to question more about the number of inquiries on the report than give you the "Hey...your AAoA is 4.1 years" line. How much does AAoA actually matter?

I think that is because the biggest risk, after defaults and lates, is very recent credit seeking, shown by the inqs, then the number of new accounts. AAoA is probably less predictive, in theory showing what happened in the past (messed up by Amex backdating). AAoA can have a significant impact of the score, but probably not of immediate concern in recon. If your AAoA is very short, you will anyway also have a number of recent inqs.

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

IWOL — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:38:50 GMT

@MstrPTato wrote:
When talking to analysts about cards when trying to recon, they seem to question more about the number of inquiries on the report than give you the "Hey...your AAoA is 4.1 years" line. How much does AAoA actually matter?

Its more about how the FICO alogorithm treats AAoA and not analysts manualy looking at reports.

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

B335is — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:42:35 GMT

@MstrPTato wrote:
When talking to analysts about cards when trying to recon, they seem to question more about the number of inquiries on the report than give you the "Hey...your AAoA is 4.1 years" line. How much does AAoA actually matter?

They can still quickly pick up on new accounts. I've never personally had an analyst comment specifically about my aaoa.

I've opened quite a few Amices to cushion my aaoa. At one point I was seeing a 17 month bump to my aaoa with each Amex opened. Obviously the more I open other cards, the less impact a new Amex has. I'm down to about 9 months aaoa bump for each Amex these days.

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

gdale6 — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 22:55:14 GMT

Once your AAoA is at 8 years plus it isnt necessary to continue to try and add to it, Fico will not increase score past a certain cut off no matter how high your AAoA is.

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 23:58:24 GMT

Amex backdated the ED I was recently approved for back to 1980. I have every intention of apping for the BCE in a year or so to try and get some more backdate love. My AAoA currently sits at 2.7 years, so I'm really looking forward to the change when my ED hits my reports.

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

Involver — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 00:25:03 GMT

I have several Amex cards. I use one of them. The rest were opened specifically for signup bonuses and for age. 20 year old accounts are very helpful.

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 00:50:16 GMT

I feel like if someone continually did that they would get FR'ed lol

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 01:57:35 GMT

Will AMEX give you the backdate benefit if it says on your online profile, but it has MSD 2015 on the physical card?

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

Revelate — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 02:09:59 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Will AMEX give you the backdate benefit if it says on your online profile, but it has MSD 2015 on the physical card?

Yes. Can get the card replaced too if it bothers you but it doesn't bother me: the online profile is reference for their systems.

As for the plan: I would suggest it's a bad one and the simple reason is that automated underwriting does not exist... any UW is going to see that pattern of behavior and will flag it as "interesting" which is typically bad for us consumers ("show a bureaucrat what they're expecting to see" philosophy). Also that there's extreme diminishing returns in the FICO algorithm for AAOA once you get beyond the 4-5 year mark anyway so you wouldn't be improving one's score to godlike proportions as AAOA != payment history... there are no pretty OK's for a backdated account: my BCP looks flat out goofy on my credit report and that's when I look at it, let alone someone who does this for a living.

That said, while I am doing a mortgage on terribly short notice now and don't have time to play games with my AAOA, if I currently had a backdate that would've kicked me over a AAOA year boundary by the time I was expecting to make a mortgage app, I'd do it, but a part of that is only that my AAOA is 2.5 years anyway. 7-8 years like my report likely will be on my second mortgage, there really isn't much point even if I had a spectacular backdate going back 25+ years.

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 02:36:10 GMT

@MstrPTato wrote:
When talking to analysts about cards when trying to recon, they seem to question more about the number of inquiries on the report than give you the "Hey...your AAoA is 4.1 years" line. How much does AAoA actually matter?

Score building mostly.

You can fool the computer, but not the analyst.

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

Involver — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 03:00:18 GMT

Why would you get FR'd for opening multiple Amex accounts?

FR isn't even anything to worry about if you're honest about your financials you claim when you app. Not sure why people see them as such a big deal.

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

Kostya1992 — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 03:27:49 GMT

If anyone is to notice this type of behavior, it would be AMEX. Anything stopping them from taking away your MSD priveledge completely / changing your MSD to 2015 on all accounts if they notice that you're gaming their system?

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 03:50:05 GMT

@Kostya1992 wrote:
If anyone is to notice this type of behavior, it would be AMEX. Anything stopping them from taking away your MSD priveledge completely / changing your MSD to 2015 on all accounts if they notice that you're gaming their system?

You would no be gamin their system. Amex would not be losing anything on you doing this save some money it costs them to have your account administered.

In fact I am pretty sure Amex would say "go ahead knock yourself out". Backdating is one of the things they provide to their members, and one thing about Amex is they actually invite people to use all the benefits of being a member.

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

fedxboy — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 07:08:37 GMT

Those are part of the perks of having a geniune AMEX and this is the month to do it!!

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

takeshi74 — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 14:53:40 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Nothing actually prevents it, but Amex would have to continue to be willing to issue cards with that on your record, and you would also be getting a lot of inqs.

This and given how averages work the benefit isn't linear with each additional card. Further, AAoA is only 15%.

http://www.myfico.com/crediteducation/whatsinyourscore.aspx

@Anonymous wrote:
Will AMEX give you the backdate benefit if it says on your online profile, but it has MSD 2015 on the physical card?

It's not unusal for initial cards to go out with an incorrect MSD.

@Involver wrote:
Why would you get FR'd for opening multiple Amex accounts?

Opening multiple accounts is no big deal. Repeatedly opening and closing accounts, as stated above, is an "interesting" (and not in a agood way) pattern. I'm not aware of anyone that has been FR'ed because of this but it could raise red flags with any creditor.

Re: Opening AMEX card just to increase AAoA

itguy_65 — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 16:04:44 GMT

I just got back in with Amex last year, but I am lucky enough to have an MSD of 1987. End of last year, I applied for a Barclays account, when talking with the analyst, they actually made a comment about my "incredible payment record with the Amex account since 1987".