topic Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU in Credit Cards

need help deciding which CC to become AU

new_earth — Fri, 03 May 2013 01:50:50 GMT

hi My mom has agreed to add me as an authorized user to one of her CC's, I just won't get the physical card. I have my own VERY NEW accounts so I don't need the card anyway. I just want it for better account age. Mine is very short.

I have these two options, both are 10 to 15 years old, she is going to check on the age:

1 for 3,000 CL, but it has a high balance around $2,000

or I can use one for $600 with a much smaller balance, she is not sure the exact amount.

she said she has NO lates, has always paid on time. She usually pays more than the minimum amount due.

She is getting old in her thinking and wants to close a lot of her cards. She has a HUGE limit with Chase but wants to close it. And quite a few others she is going to close. She's silly. She is definitely keeping the $3,000 open, I would like to use that one since it is a higher limit but her balance kinda stinks :/

She has excellent credit overall though with whatever it is she has been doing.

I currently have $3350 revolving but all brand new, literally, which is why I wanted to be an AU to help with age. I plan to apply for a car refi soon and some other things, and better cards down the line. So if you add all my CL's and her $3,000, my utilzation will already be around 30%, not including usage on my own cards. She is paying her balance down over time. Do you think it's a good idea to just do it? I mean that's 10 to 15 years of perfect payment history....

the real question is, get added to a higher limit CC with a high balance, or a lower limit with lower balance? I thought having $3,000 limit in general could help me in the long run though.

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

new_earth — Fri, 03 May 2013 02:02:32 GMT

I hate to bump my own thread but before it quickly falls off the page, which it already was LOL she is doing this tomorrow morning, anyone have advice which one would be the better choice? gotta text her soon ...I of course highly value the opinions here!

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

doc101 — Fri, 03 May 2013 02:07:15 GMT

Try the older card........from what I've learned here, the older the card the better

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

jamesdwi — Fri, 03 May 2013 02:09:17 GMT

take the $600 CL card unless its balance is higher than 30% of its CL, the CL isn't important, most lender will exclude it in CL calculations you want its age, but your fico score will be effected by its Balance so you don't want to have one that is 66% UTL and also increasing your UTL accross all your cards.

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

myjourney — Fri, 03 May 2013 02:11:23 GMT

IMHO the chase would be best until mom closes it ... cards with high UTL or low limits won't help much

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

vish1 — Fri, 03 May 2013 02:16:29 GMT

@myjourney wrote:
IMHO the chase would be best until mom closes it ... cards with high UTL or low limits won't help much

Chase is the best. AFAIK even after she closes it, it will report on CBs for about 10 years. That should be more than enough time for you to establish your own AAoA

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

new_earth — Fri, 03 May 2013 02:20:29 GMT

I think her Chase balance is high too :/ I will ask. So if I do get one of the cards she plans to close later, won't it still help with my aaoa? just at the point she closes it, the limit will be gone. She seems to keep going by the cards she plans to keep. I guess really it doesn't matter.

I guess I need highest limit with lowest balance, whether she closes or not.

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

indiolatino61 — Fri, 03 May 2013 03:20:26 GMT

@new_earth wrote:
hi My mom has agreed to add me as an authorized user to one of her CC's, I just won't get the physical card. I have my own VERY NEW accounts so I don't need the card anyway. I just want it for better account age. Mine is very short.

I have these two options, both are 10 to 15 years old, she is going to check on the age:
1 for 3,000 CL, but it has a high balance around $2,000
or I can use one for $600 with a much smaller balance, she is not sure the exact amount.

she said she has NO lates, has always paid on time. She usually pays more than the minimum amount due.

She is getting old in her thinking and wants to close a lot of her cards. She has a HUGE limit with Chase but wants to close it. And quite a few others she is going to close. She's silly. She is definitely keeping the $3,000 open, I would like to use that one since it is a higher limit but her balance kinda stinks :/

She has excellent credit overall though with whatever it is she has been doing.

I currently have $3350 revolving but all brand new, literally, which is why I wanted to be an AU to help with age. I plan to apply for a car refi soon and some other things, and better cards down the line. So if you add all my CL's and her $3,000, my utilzation will already be around 30%, not including usage on my own cards. She is paying her balance down over time. Do you think it's a good idea to just do it? I mean that's 10 to 15 years of perfect payment history....

the real question is, get added to a higher limit CC with a high balance, or a lower limit with lower balance? I thought having $3,000 limit in general could help me in the long run though.

Pick the one with the longest history, the best payment record and the highest CL...

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

myjourney — Fri, 03 May 2013 03:16:22 GMT

@new_earth wrote:
I think her Chase balance is high too :/ I will ask. So if I do get one of the cards she plans to close later, won't it still help with my aaoa? just at the point she closes it, the limit will be gone. She seems to keep going by the cards she plans to keep. I guess really it doesn't matter.

I guess I need highest limit with lowest balance, whether she closes or not. YES

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

new_earth — Fri, 03 May 2013 10:33:32 GMT

thank you all, I will update with which card we picked later today I am so happy she is doing this!

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

new_earth — Sat, 04 May 2013 17:54:45 GMT

so Chase is out of the question, her balance is too high.

The best one is her Capital One for $900 with a $600 balance. Not so great still, but when I add the $900 to my own available credit, with just her $600 balance I have around 14% utilization. not TOO bad. but that doesn't count in my own usage, so I'd have to keep mine at a very minimum. I'm really looking for a BETTER credit history in general anyway, not optimum 100% excellent, it's just not gonna happen right now anyway.

At least my AAoA will be more than THREE MONTHS LOL.

she still pays it down every month though, so the balance WILL go down. she has not missed ONE payment on it and it is over 10 years old. It was the best option of all the ones she has. once I have my auto loan refinanced with smaller monthly payment and have other bills in order, i'll help her pay it down anyway, i do owe her a little bit of money anyway for something but she wasn't that worried about getting it back.

so, I think this will at least help me a little, I HOPE!

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

09Lexie — Sat, 04 May 2013 18:18:00 GMT

Good luck.

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

new_earth — Sat, 04 May 2013 18:33:00 GMT

thank you! I hope I'm making a right move. It's not the greatest but there is no one else I can think of to add me that would do it.

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

Cheryla18 — Sun, 05 May 2013 01:25:24 GMT

@new_earth wrote:
hi My mom has agreed to add me as an authorized user to one of her CC's, I just won't get the physical card. I have my own VERY NEW accounts so I don't need the card anyway. I just want it for better account age. Mine is very short.

I have these two options, both are 10 to 15 years old, she is going to check on the age:
1 for 3,000 CL, but it has a high balance around $2,000
or I can use one for $600 with a much smaller balance, she is not sure the exact amount.

she said she has NO lates, has always paid on time. She usually pays more than the minimum amount due.

She is getting old in her thinking and wants to close a lot of her cards. She has a HUGE limit with Chase but wants to close it. And quite a few others she is going to close. She's silly. She is definitely keeping the $3,000 open, I would like to use that one since it is a higher limit but her balance kinda stinks :/

She has excellent credit overall though with whatever it is she has been doing.

I currently have $3350 revolving but all brand new, literally, which is why I wanted to be an AU to help with age. I plan to apply for a car refi soon and some other things, and better cards down the line. So if you add all my CL's and her $3,000, my utilzation will already be around 30%, not including usage on my own cards. She is paying her balance down over time. Do you think it's a good idea to just do it? I mean that's 10 to 15 years of perfect payment history....

the real question is, get added to a higher limit CC with a high balance, or a lower limit with lower balance? I thought having $3,000 limit in general could help me in the long run though.

This will show how much I don't know....However I was...at one time a AU on my moms' JcPenny card but never saw it on my credit report...... so how does that help? She did add me a Joint on her Kohl's card and it did show on my report.... So i am unfamiliar with how being a AU can help without being Joint.

Any info is appreaciated!!

Cheryl

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

new_earth — Sun, 05 May 2013 02:26:42 GMT

it could just be that, at least at the time, JC Penney did not report AU's to CRA's. Some don't. Capital One definitely does, it is noted on their site where you can add one that it is reported to all 3. I think it just depends on the CC company.

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

armbenderc — Sun, 05 May 2013 04:36:33 GMT

Sounds like your mom has high utils and reports on multiple accounts. I would be afraid to get added as an au.

I agreed with many post to pick the oldest and lowest utils. Also one that reported to all 3 CAs

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

Cheryla18 — Sun, 05 May 2013 09:50:46 GMT

@new_earth wrote:
it could just be that, at least at the time, JC Penney did not report AU's to CRA's. Some don't. Capital One definitely does, it is noted on their site where you can add one that it is reported to all 3. I think it just depends on the CC company.

I'm not sure. Do you know if Chase does? She has a Chase card no balance. Open in 1996 with a Credit Line of $500.00 and NO lates in the last 7 years. I help her with her credit reporting.

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

new_earth — Sun, 05 May 2013 11:48:15 GMT

@armbenderc wrote:
Sounds like your mom has high utils and reports on multiple accounts. I would be afraid to get added as an au.

I agreed with many post to pick the oldest and lowest utils. Also one that reported to all 3 CAs

She has pretty high balances on all her cards right now. The best she had was a Capital One with $900 CL and $600 balance, over 10 years old with zero lates. I have already been added. But that, added to my own CL's across the board, my util. won't be too bad. I am actually thinking of trying to convince her to ask for a CLI so the util. is lower.

My mom generally has very good credit and gets approved for everything despite her high util. The funny thing is she never asks for CLI's!!! She just waits for them to do it automatically. Silly! If she would ask for them her util would be way lower.

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

new_earth — Sun, 05 May 2013 11:49:54 GMT

@Cheryla18 wrote:
@new_earth wrote:
it could just be that, at least at the time, JC Penney did not report AU's to CRA's. Some don't. Capital One definitely does, it is noted on their site where you can add one that it is reported to all 3. I think it just depends on the CC company.
I'm not sure. Do you know if Chase does? She has a Chase card no balance. Open in 1996 with a Credit Line of $500.00 and NO lates in the last 7 years. I help her with her credit reporting.

I am sure Chase does. I was an AU on someone's Chase a few years ago and it reported to all 3 CRA's, backdated to their date opened. I had to have it removed from my CR's this year though because the person ran into money problems and the card got charged off. Fortunately AU accounts are very easy to have removed from your CR's if you need them gone.

Re: need help deciding which CC to become AU

Cheryla18 — Sun, 05 May 2013 12:05:02 GMT

@new_earth wrote:
@Cheryla18 wrote:
@new_earth wrote:
it could just be that, at least at the time, JC Penney did not report AU's to CRA's. Some don't. Capital One definitely does, it is noted on their site where you can add one that it is reported to all 3. I think it just depends on the CC company.
I'm not sure. Do you know if Chase does? She has a Chase card no balance. Open in 1996 with a Credit Line of $500.00 and NO lates in the last 7 years. I help her with her credit reporting.
I am sure Chase does. I was an AU on someone's Chase a few years ago and it reported to all 3 CRA's, backdated to their date opened. I had to have it removed from my CR's this year though because the person ran into money problems and the card got charged off. Fortunately AU accounts are very easy to have removed from your CR's if you need them gone.

That is Awesome News!!! Thank you for the info...I will get right on that Monday morning!!!

Cheryl