topic Re: AAOA? in Understanding FICO® Scoring

AAOA?

selena — Sat, 27 Jun 2015 06:30:32 GMT

I have two credit cards that were open about the same time back in 2012. I want to close one of them as it doesn't serve much purpose for me anymore. I was wondering how much of an affect closing one would have even though I have another credit card with the same history as it is the average age of accounts. Will it drop significantly or would the change be minor?

Re: AAOA?

Anonymous — Sat, 27 Jun 2015 06:35:40 GMT

Well if you app for more cards, they will average out all of them and it will most likely drop your AAOA a bit more. My oldest is Amex and next is VS & Cap One. And that Cap One has a very low limit of 2k as compared to my other Venture's with 20k a piece on them. I keep it because it's over 10 yrs old. I'm afraid my AAOA will go down too far. Wait for other experts to give you advice on this.

Re: AAOA?

myjourney — Sat, 27 Jun 2015 06:37:21 GMT

No effect at all other than UTL if needed

Try the calculator and experiment AAOA

http://seemly.com/aaoa-calculator/

Re: AAOA?

Anonymous — Sat, 27 Jun 2015 12:31:55 GMT

I no longer use my BoA cash rewards card but keep it open because it is my oldest card.

Just sock drawer it and charge something small like a pack of gum each year.

It's worth it in my opinion just to keep your score/AAoA up.

But it honestly depends on how many CC's you currently have and if you're planning on applying for new ones anytime soon.

Re: AAOA?

NRB525 — Sat, 27 Jun 2015 16:02:07 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I no longer use my BoA cash rewards card but keep it open because it is my oldest card.
Just sock drawer it and charge something small like a pack of gum each year.
It's worth it in my opinion just to keep your score/AAoA up.
But it honestly depends on how many CC's you currently have and if you're planning on applying for new ones anytime soon.

You may want to try to work that Bank of America account to a larger CL. BofA sends out 0% BT offers with a 4% fee regularly. Perhaps not now, but at some point in the future you may decide that looks like a good offer.

Re: AAOA?

Anonymous — Sat, 27 Jun 2015 17:28:30 GMT

As myJourney points out, closing it will have no effect on your AAoA. Thre reason why is that closed accounts (in FICO's models) continue to age and they count toward your AAoA just as much as open accounts do. The slight caveat is that, ten years from now, when the closed account falls off your report, it will of course no longer contribute toward your AAoA.

If the account you close is older than all your others by a big stretch, then when it falls off in ten years it will also affect a different factor, which is "age of your oldest account." So some people like to keep their oldest CC going -- if it is substantially older than your others AND there is no annual fee to it.

Re: AAOA?

Anonymous — Sat, 27 Jun 2015 18:05:44 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I no longer use my BoA cash rewards card but keep it open because it is my oldest card.
Just sock drawer it and charge something small like a pack of gum each year.
It's worth it in my opinion just to keep your score/AAoA up.
But it honestly depends on how many CC's you currently have and if you're planning on applying for new ones anytime soon.

Closing the card would have no impact on your AAoA.

Re: AAOA?

selena — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 02:20:52 GMT

Thanks for the responses. I see it won't have an immediate affect. I just applied for the BCE to replace the ED (talked to quite a few reps about a product change but all of them said I had offers for other cards but it wasn't possible and that the only card I could product change to is the EDP). My oldest cards are the Freedom and Discover It, so I think I'm just gonna close the IT. It's the card I use the least plus the BCE I was approved for has a higher cl even with all the Discover love.

Re: AAOA?

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 05:46:10 GMT

@selena wrote:
Thanks for the responses. I see it won't have an immediate affect. I just applied for the BCE to replace the ED (talked to quite a few reps about a product change but all of them said I had offers for other cards but it wasn't possible and that the only card I could product change to is the EDP). My oldest cards are the Freedom and Discover It, so I think I'm just gonna close the IT. It's the card I use the least plus the BCE I was approved for has a higher cl even with all the Discover love.

Why not just leave it open until Amex closes it themselves? If I could have a 3 year old account with no AF I'd take it. And that wouldn't even be my oldest card. haha What's the CLI compared to the other cards?

Re: AAOA?

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 06:51:31 GMT

@myjourney wrote:
No effect at all other than UTL if needed
Try the calculator and experiment AAOA
http://seemly.com/aaoa-calculator/

Well dang! That only goes to 20 accounts...

Re: AAOA?

Revelate — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 14:15:19 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@myjourney wrote:
No effect at all other than UTL if needed
Try the calculator and experiment AAOA
http://seemly.com/aaoa-calculator/
Well dang! That only goes to 20 accounts...

Hah, if you're OK with Excel it's not too hard. Worst case I can send you my dirt simple spreadsheet that has the formula I use for calculating it anyway, ain't pretty but works.

Formula I use is:

=(YEAR(NOW())-YEAR(B2))*12+MONTH(NOW())-MONTH(B2)

Where B2 is date of opening (first day of month is fine, pretty irrelevant for this so 5/1/08 for my old BOFA card). After that just sum up and divide by number of tradelines and round down again for prettiness. Might round the wrong way but really no way to prove yes/no on that, appeared to work for me when I was oscillating above and below the 2 year AAOA boundary where I saw a very small change in scores in my testing so it's good enough for me anyway.

Re: AAOA?

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 14:33:15 GMT

@Revelate wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@myjourney wrote:
No effect at all other than UTL if needed
Try the calculator and experiment AAOA
http://seemly.com/aaoa-calculator/
Well dang! That only goes to 20 accounts...
Hah, if you're OK with Excel it's not too hard. Worst case I can send you my dirt simple spreadsheet that has the formula I use for calculating it anyway, ain't pretty but works.

Formula I use is:

=(YEAR(NOW())-YEAR(B2))*12+MONTH(NOW())-MONTH(B2)

Where B2 is date of opening (first day of month is fine, pretty irrelevant for this so 5/1/08 for my old BOFA card). After that just sum up and divide by number of tradelines and round down again for prettiness. Might round the wrong way but really no way to prove yes/no on that, appeared to work for me when I was oscillating above and below the 2 year AAOA boundary where I saw a very small change in scores in my testing so it's good enough for me anyway.

Here's another calculator that allows for more than 20 accounts. Pretty easy to use

http://aaoacalculator.tumblr.com/

Re: AAOA?

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Jun 2015 20:47:27 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Revelate wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@myjourney wrote:
No effect at all other than UTL if needed
Try the calculator and experiment AAOA
http://seemly.com/aaoa-calculator/
Well dang! That only goes to 20 accounts...
Hah, if you're OK with Excel it's not too hard. Worst case I can send you my dirt simple spreadsheet that has the formula I use for calculating it anyway, ain't pretty but works.

Formula I use is:

=(YEAR(NOW())-YEAR(B2))*12+MONTH(NOW())-MONTH(B2)

Where B2 is date of opening (first day of month is fine, pretty irrelevant for this so 5/1/08 for my old BOFA card). After that just sum up and divide by number of tradelines and round down again for prettiness. Might round the wrong way but really no way to prove yes/no on that, appeared to work for me when I was oscillating above and below the 2 year AAOA boundary where I saw a very small change in scores in my testing so it's good enough for me anyway.
Here's another calculator that allows for more than 20 accounts. Pretty easy to use

http://aaoacalculator.tumblr.com/

Plus, unlike the first one, you can plug in accounts from 2015.

Re: AAOA?

selena — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 02:46:47 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@selena wrote:
Thanks for the responses. I see it won't have an immediate affect. I just applied for the BCE to replace the ED (talked to quite a few reps about a product change but all of them said I had offers for other cards but it wasn't possible and that the only card I could product change to is the EDP). My oldest cards are the Freedom and Discover It, so I think I'm just gonna close the IT. It's the card I use the least plus the BCE I was approved for has a higher cl even with all the Discover love.
Why not just leave it open until Amex closes it themselves? If I could have a 3 year old account with no AF I'd take it. And that wouldn't even be my oldest card. haha What's the CLI compared to the other cards?

Discover is 4k (after all the love, was 1700), my highest being my Citi TYPremier with 10k. The other four fall in between those two each around 5k or 6k.

Re: AAOA?

selena — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 02:48:34 GMT

Also these calculators are pretty neat.

Re: AAOA?

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 03:03:38 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Revelate wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@myjourney wrote:
No effect at all other than UTL if needed
Try the calculator and experiment AAOA
http://seemly.com/aaoa-calculator/
Well dang! That only goes to 20 accounts...
Hah, if you're OK with Excel it's not too hard. Worst case I can send you my dirt simple spreadsheet that has the formula I use for calculating it anyway, ain't pretty but works.

Formula I use is:

=(YEAR(NOW())-YEAR(B2))*12+MONTH(NOW())-MONTH(B2)

Where B2 is date of opening (first day of month is fine, pretty irrelevant for this so 5/1/08 for my old BOFA card). After that just sum up and divide by number of tradelines and round down again for prettiness. Might round the wrong way but really no way to prove yes/no on that, appeared to work for me when I was oscillating above and below the 2 year AAOA boundary where I saw a very small change in scores in my testing so it's good enough for me anyway.
Here's another calculator that allows for more than 20 accounts. Pretty easy to use

http://aaoacalculator.tumblr.com/

That one is PERFECT! Thank you!

My AAoA will be 4.28 or 4.43 years after all my new accounts report. Then it will fall a little again when I have a closed account that will hit 10 years next year and fall off. After that, it will begin going up again. Not as bad as I was expecting. I was expecting a huge hit because I just applied for and got approved for several new accounts.