topic Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

cashcardscore — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 03:34:33 GMT

Right now my AAoA is just over 9 years.

Chase is sending me a new Slate card (long story) but it is replacing my oldest active account which was opened in 2002.

Once the new card reports, I will have two accounts opened in 2002.

By my calculation, that will push my AAoA to over 10 years.

I am asking because a month or two after the new Slate card reports, my paid auto loans will report which will drop my score.

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 03:54:34 GMT

Are you certain that Chase does this when a card is replaced? I would think that the new card would have an account opened date of now, or if it had an account opened date of 2002 that they would delete one of the reported trade lines.

If it were this easy to artifically increase AAoA, everyone would "lose" their oldest revolver a bunch of times and get it replaced, no?

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

cashcardscore — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 04:17:37 GMT

~~I am positive.~~

I am not sure now.

Chase said this will be just like if I had lost my card or had it stolen.

Original account will be closed and the new account will be opened but it will show age back to 2002.

I once had 2 BoA accounts on my reports with only 1 card. One account showed lost/stolen.

That fell off at some point.

I have two USAA accounts on my reports with only 1 card. One account shows closed by credit grantor (hacked card). That account was closed in 2012.

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 04:11:00 GMT

Nobody knows for sure whether you get extra points for having an AAoA of 10 vs. (say) 8. And if you do get some extra points, whether you get a few more still for having an AAoA of 11 or 12 (say). It's likely to be scorecard dependent, for one thing.

More importantly, we don't know because, unlike something like credit card utilization, AAoA isn't something a person can easily move back and forth, up and down. Because it is so easy to play with something like CC util, there is a lot of test data here on the forums about it. But with AAoA, you can't move your AAoA to 12, then down to 7.9, then back to 10.1, then down to 4.2, etc. -- watching your score change all the time.

That said, a few things are known. For example, there are at least a few people who have scored a perfect 850 with an AAoA of 8. Therefore whatever advantage you get from going higher than 8 can't be particularly big.

You mention that you have just paid off your two auto loans, and that you anticipate a score drop because of that. Do you have any other open loans? If you do, how much do you owe on them and what were the original amounts of the loans?

If you do not have any other open loans, we can suggest a method that will give you another 30 points or so, far more than anything that your AAoA will do for you.

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 04:17:07 GMT

@cashcardscore wrote:
I am positive.

Chase said this will be just like if I had lost my card or had it stolen.

Original account will be closed and the new account will be opened but it will show age back to 2002.

But when most people have their card lost or stolen, the end result is not two accounts. There might be two accounts for a month (maybe!) but very quickly the new card takes the place of the old one on your credit report. I have lost cards with many issuers before and it has never resulted in a long term result of two accounts.

I am not saying that what the rep told you can never happen, but I would say you should be prepared for the possibility that you'll just have one account like before.

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

cashcardscore — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 04:19:19 GMT

My auto loans will show closed when they report in late Feb.

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

cashcardscore — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 04:22:57 GMT

Here is a shot of my accounts from a TU report in 2013. The same accounts report currently this is just easier to see than a 3B report.

I only have 1 USAA card opened in 2007.

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 04:23:45 GMT

Yup, I realzie that you have two auto loans that were open but will soon report closed.

Do you have any other open loans?

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

cashcardscore — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 04:25:36 GMT

Nope

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 04:30:01 GMT

Then you should consider something called the Share Secure Loan technique. It will prevent you from losing any FICO 8 points when your loans report as paid. The first three posts will tell you all you need to know about how it works and what to do:

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Adding-an-installment-loan-the-Share-Secure-technique/m-p/4506756

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 04:35:04 GMT

If you only have one card, you should get your card so that it is always reporting a small positive balance, like $10. Then after a couple months of that, open a few more cards. Your score will benefit a lot in the long run from having three cards.

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

cashcardscore — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 04:46:26 GMT

I am already tracking the Alliant and NFCU loans. Maybe in a few months.

I have a bunch of revolving accounts, I am not sure why you said that.

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 05:26:46 GMT

@cashcardscore wrote:
I am already tracking the Alliant and NFCU loans. Maybe in a few months.

I have a bunch of revolving accounts, I am not sure why you said that.

Earlier in this thread you wrote: "I only have 1 USAA card opened in 2007."

I thought you might be trying to tell me you only had one credit card.

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

cashcardscore — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 06:02:08 GMT

I have 1 USAA card but a lot of other cards. CU FTW!

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

Revelate — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 13:58:07 GMT

@cashcardscore wrote:
I have 1 USAA card but a lot of other cards. CU FTW!

Ah the cut and paste you tried didn't work, I only see the USAA card too.

As others have stated, we just don't know where the breakpoints are for AAOA. Obviously longer is better, but this forum is particularly unsuited for testing it in some respects... our accounts are just too busy heh.

Old reports were that there aren't breakpoints at every year, and my own data supports that: I tried, twice as it turned out, to find a breakpoint at 3 years and got nada; obviously longer is better so it's not a real concern, but when people can hit FICO 8 850 south of 8 years now (albeit on a highly unusual file), breakpoints north of the long alleged 8 probably don't mean much unless you're beating your file like a rented mule anyway .

The interesting one is going to be if someone can hit 850 in the 4-7 range I think, but we're likely going to need another unusual file with age of oldest account being much longer likely to determine that.

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 14:00:24 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Are you certain that Chase does this when a card is replaced? I would think that the new card would have an account opened date of now, or if it had an account opened date of 2002 that they would delete one of the reported trade lines.

If it were this easy to artifically increase AAoA, everyone would "lose" their oldest revolver a bunch of times and get it replaced, no?

I am not sure how chase handles going from one card to another. But I have experienced this on a secured card from "Amalgamated Bank of Chicago". First card was $2500 secured. After about six months I increased limit to $5000 and they automatically send me a gold card. They closed my original tradeline and opened new tradeline with back date of when original was created. About a year or so after they implemented the credit card chip and send me another card. End result, is I have three tradelines, two closed, one open. All were opened on the original tradeline date. Not sure if this was correct process, or mistake. I never contacted them for explanation.

Initially this hurt my AAoA as I had few accounts and this was young tradelines, but figured over time it will help my AAoA.

Re: Is there an AAoA bucket for 10 years or more?

Revelate — Sun, 22 Jan 2017 15:06:16 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Are you certain that Chase does this when a card is replaced? I would think that the new card would have an account opened date of now, or if it had an account opened date of 2002 that they would delete one of the reported trade lines.

If it were this easy to artifically increase AAoA, everyone would "lose" their oldest revolver a bunch of times and get it replaced, no?
I am not sure how chase handles going from one card to another. But I have experienced this on a secured card from "Amalgamated Bank of Chicago". First card was $2500 secured. After about six months I increased limit to $5000 and they automatically send me a gold card. They closed my original tradeline and opened new tradeline with back date of when original was created. About a year or so after they implemented the credit card chip and send me another card. End result, is I have three tradelines, two closed, one open. All were opened on the original tradeline date. Not sure if this was correct process, or mistake. I never contacted them for explanation.
Initially this hurt my AAoA as I had few accounts and this was young tradelines, but figured over time it will help my AAoA.

Mistaken implementation, but as you suggest I wouldn't touch it either.

Smaller lenders tend to be all over the map, and there isn't a lot of consistency anyway between large lenders either (Chase I didn't get a temporarily duplicate tradeline, BOFA I did)

Safe to say though losing one's card repeatedly is a bad idea, that almost assuredly will get flagged for some sort of shennigans and when lenders can't understand something their likely default reaction is to just suspect or outright close the accounts.