topic Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice in General Credit Topics

Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

SecretAzure — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 02:58:12 GMT

Hello there fellow MyFico denizens. I am looking for a reliable way to tell what my AAOA from a FICO score perspective. I'm planning on apping for a card and want to be able to see how hard of a hit i'll take to my AAOA. I've searched online and found several but they seem either unhelpful or innacurate.

I have a CK account but it really isn't good in this department as it literally removes cards that you close from your AAOA meter. Clearly Vantage 3.0 and FICO differ a lot here.

Is there a service out there that will calculate it for me? I don't mind entering things one-by-one but I'm unsure of a lot of things.

How AU (and closed AU) accounts are reported, if at all.
I have a closed car loan (paid off nearly 2 years ago), how will this affect my score?
I have a 2 year old mortgage and HELOC as well. No baddies, lates, etc.

I really don't know how to even measure my AAOA and any and all help would be really appreciated.

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 04:29:14 GMT

@SecretAzure wrote:

I really don't know how to even measure my AAOA and any and all help would be really appreciated.

It's actually very simple to figure if you've got 5-10 minutes of spare time. FICO scoring looks at all accounts on your credit report, whether or not they're open or closed. Figure out the age of each individual account first in months. To do this all you need to know is that any account opened in a certain month will become 1 month old on the 1st of the following month. Another way to look at it is if you opened an account at any point in March 2018 it became 12 months old on March 1, 2019.

Once you have all of your individual account ages, add them up to get a months total. Then divide that total by the number of accounts you just added up. For example, Cornelius has 2 closed accounts and 3 open accounts on his CR. Their ages are:

1 - 26 months

2 - 71 months

3 - 3 months

4 - 66 months

5 - 39 months

Added up, this is 205 months. Then divide 205 months by 5 total accounts and you get an AAoA of 41 months. This can then be expressed as an AAoA of 3 years, 5 months for simplification purposes.

Then, if you want to know the AAoA impact of adding a new account, you simply take those 205 months and divide by 1 more account, so 6 in this example. 205/6 = 34.16 months. AAoA here would drop from 3 years, 5 months to approximately 2 years, 10 months.

If you have any further questions fire away!

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 21:48:12 GMT

https://aaoa-calculator.org

Just plug in month and year.

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 22:25:30 GMT

"AAOA is an acronym for Average Age of Accounts. It is a measure of how long you have managed credit. Your AAOA is responsible for up to 30% of your FICO score and other similar credit scores."

@SecretAzure, your request is very simple to do in a spreadsheet. You would probably want to calculate it two ways since Experian uses the 1st of the month as the date an account was opened while Equifax and TransUnion use the actual date the account was created.

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Queen_Etherea — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 22:55:39 GMT

You can easily do this yourself! I like to use Credit Karma, as they provide exactly how long the account has been open. So what you do you is write down (or use a spreadsheet) all of your accounts. Then add how long they've been open (Ex: 12 years, 3 months) and then convert that to months (so 147 months for that example). Add all the months together for all of your accounts, then divide that by the number of accounts you have. This will give you your Average Age of Accounts (in months) which you just need to convert back to years.

I like to use a spreaksheet because I can easily add a line for a new account if I want to see how much it'll hit my AAoA. Plus formulas make things 100x easier!

OOPS! Ok all the answers before mine are probably easier to comprehend haha. But I still stand by my spreadsheet and formulas!

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

SecretAzure — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 13:40:57 GMT

I appreciate all your helps everyone!

I always understood how credit affects my FICO scores but I never understood exactly how it was calculated. CK is very helpful but it's not the best when it comes to this. For example, my paid off car loan from 2 years ago doesn't even show on there.

I took the advice and it looks like my AAOA is currently 4 years. If I apply for a new CC in April my AAOA drops to 3 years.

This factor having a medium impact on my FICO score, do you think I should worry about it and grow my AAOA out some more or should I just go ahead and app? My newest card is from 11-2017 (BB).

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Queen_Etherea — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 15:40:37 GMT

@SecretAzure wrote:
I appreciate all your helps everyone!

I always understood how credit affects my FICO scores but I never understood exactly how it was calculated. CK is very helpful but it's not the best when it comes to this. For example, my paid off car loan from 2 years ago doesn't even show on there.

I took the advice and it looks like my AAOA is currently 4 years. If I apply for a new CC in April my AAOA drops to 3 years.

This factor having a medium impact on my FICO score, do you think I should worry about it and grow my AAOA out some more or should I just go ahead and app? My newest card is from 11-2017 (BB).

Honestly, you shouldn't take much of a hit if you apply. My AAoA was a little over 2 years, and when I got a new card, it dropped it a few months. My score didn't budge an inch after the account hit my reports. So if your scores are good, and you're not planning on applying for anything major soon (like a car, mortgage, etc.) then I say go for it. Your scores will quickly recover if you do lose a few points.

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 16:39:50 GMT

@SecretAzure wrote:
I appreciate all your helps everyone!

I always understood how credit affects my FICO scores but I never understood exactly how it was calculated. CK is very helpful but it's not the best when it comes to this. For example, my paid off car loan from 2 years ago doesn't even show on there.

I took the advice and it looks like my AAOA is currently 4 years. If I apply for a new CC in April my AAOA drops to 3 years.

This factor having a medium impact on my FICO score, do you think I should worry about it and grow my AAOA out some more or should I just go ahead and app? My newest card is from 11-2017 (BB).

4 to 3 isn’t a threshold that’s known. As long as you’re over 2 still there shouldn’t be much of a drop, if any.

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 16:45:52 GMT

My from the hip estimate on AAoA changes is 8-10 points per year, or 4-5 points per 6 months. Could be more or less depending on profile and scorecard assignment. It's also important to understand that the changes aren't proportional; they don't happen at the same increments. I also believe strongly that diminishing returns comes into play... where a year early on "matters" more than a year later on. For example, an AAoA drop from 2 years to 1 year is going to be more impactful than an AAoA drop from 8 years to 7 years, even though both involve exactly the same amount of drop in terms of time.

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Mar 2019 18:11:11 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
My from the hip estimate on AAoA changes is 8-10 points per year, or 4-5 points per 6 months. Could be more or less depending on profile and scorecard assignment. It's also important to understand that the changes aren't proportional; they don't happen at the same increments. I also believe strongly that diminishing returns comes into play... where a year early on "matters" more than a year later on. For example, an AAoA drop from 2 years to 1 year is going to be more impactful than an AAoA drop from 8 years to 7 years, even though both involve exactly the same amount of drop in terms of time.

This hasn’t played out on my profile at all. By your estimations I should have lost 16-20 points on TU going from over 4 to just over 2 and in reality I didn’t lose anything on TU or EX for it although I am still confused as to what tanked EQ so much. I know about the definite 2 year threshold and the 7.8 threshold but the other ones don’t appear to be as well defined.

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Anonymous — Sun, 31 Mar 2019 04:29:28 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
By your estimations I should have lost 16-20 points on TU going from over 4 to just over 2 and in reality I didn’t lose anything on TU or EX for it although I am still confused as to what tanked EQ so much.

How are you able to isolate the AAoA variable here, though? If you're talking a AAoA drop from ~4 years to ~2 years, by definition other things are going on with your profile to allow that drop. Sudden drops (or gains for that matter, although less common) are almost always accompanied with other profile/scoring changing events.

The only real way you can try to pinpoint AAoA gains/losses is slowly over time. Years really. The best way to isolate data points with relatively strong certainty is to cross a point that you believe may have caused a score gain (naturally, over time) then when an old account falls off or you open a single account which drops you to just below that test point you have the rare and one-time opportunity to retest that same data point in (say) a few months. If you see the same exact score gain, you can determine with reasonable certainty that on your profile an AAoA threshold exists at point X and is worth Y FICO points.

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Anonymous — Sun, 31 Mar 2019 13:08:08 GMT

Advice to our OP....

It sounds like the real question is this:

I am thinking about applying for another credit card soon. Is that a bad idea?

The AAoA discussion is secondary. You don't care so much about that theoretical discussion (interesting though it is) and are more concerned with the Do I apply? question.

That practical question can be answered, but only if we know other stuff, especially the crucial question of what your credit needs might be during the next 15 months. Do you think you might buy a house or a car during that time? How many cards do you have now?

PS. Congrats on learning in this thread how to compute your AAoA! That in itself is a valuable new skill. BTW, to the extent that you are homing in on that alone, you should add a decimal point in your AAoA calculations. You mention that your current AAoA is about 4 years and you will go down to about 3. If the precise shift is from 3.9 to 3.1, that's likely to have a smaller score impact than 4.1 to 3.8 (say) because you are crossing an integer year number.

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Anonymous — Sun, 31 Mar 2019 18:40:00 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
By your estimations I should have lost 16-20 points on TU going from over 4 to just over 2 and in reality I didn’t lose anything on TU or EX for it although I am still confused as to what tanked EQ so much.
How are you able to isolate the AAoA variable here, though? If you're talking a AAoA drop from ~4 years to ~2 years, by definition other things are going on with your profile to allow that drop. Sudden drops (or gains for that matter, although less common) are almost always accompanied with other profile/scoring changing events.

The only real way you can try to pinpoint AAoA gains/losses is slowly over time. Years really. The best way to isolate data points with relatively strong certainty is to cross a point that you believe may have caused a score gain (naturally, over time) then when an old account falls off or you open a single account which drops you to just below that test point you have the rare and one-time opportunity to retest that same data point in (say) a few months. If you see the same exact score gain, you can determine with reasonable certainty that on your profile an AAoA threshold exists at point X and is worth Y FICO points.

Because I didn’t lose any points for the new account or the inquiry. I didn’t start really gaining or losing points until I paid off my installment loan, got derogs off my report, and hit high utilization all at once in January. I added 3 accounts at the end of last year with minor fluctuations, not losses, and that’s bringing my AAoA down from 4y9m on TU to 2y11m now.

March - unknown - closed Capital One PlayStation, Ollo, SSFCU inquiry added

April - 628 - Discover, SSFCU reporting

May - 629 - AMEX reported two months positive and closed $0 balance

June - 648

July - 649

August - 649

September - 647 - added NFCU (inquiry only)

October - 649

November - 647 - NFCU reporting

December - 651 - added NFCU Platinum (inquiry only), Sync Amazon (inquiry only).

January - 652 - Amazon reporting

Seems like normal score yo-yoing to me and stability otherwise. After Amazon though, I went for PayPal on January 13th after getting EE for negatives which boosted me up so I can’t give any further DPs. Seems to me that a threshold would have had more of a change. These are all TU FICO8. I can provide EX over this time along with EX changes as well if you would like. EX is actually fascinating because it stayed solid at 670 for months and then hit 671 when BBVA’s inquiry hit in December.

Actually since I have the app open, I might as well add Experian.

February - 675

March - 663 - closed PlayStation, Ollo AMEX inquiry, SSFCU reporting new account

April - 652 - Disco

May - 652 - AMEX reports two months and closed $0 balance.

June - 670

July - 670

August - 670

September - 670

October - 670 - NFCU reporting

November - 670

December - 671 - BBVA inquiry

January - 662 - Sync Amazon, Sync PayPal reporting, AMEX inquiry, NFCU Platinum reporting 31.8% balance, paid off only installment loan reporting, BBVA reporting 20% balance

February - 662 - Citi inquiry, BBVA reporting 0% balance

March - 670 - DCU reporting new account, NFCU reporting 12.1% balance

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Five6Two — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 21:34:14 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
https://aaoa-calculator.org

Just plug in month and year.

This was great, thank you. Now to make a spreadsheet so that I do not have to type all that madness in again

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Apr 2019 06:08:41 GMT

BBS I have been able to isolate the AAOA variable on my accounts when they’ve gone into and out of dispute. That suspends their affect on age and re-institutes it afterwards.

Additionally, if you are added as a joint owner, you can isolate. I say this with the caveat you have to ensure there is no scorecard change.

For instance if you add a joint account that’s under a year or two, then it could reset your AoYA. If that’s the case you need to already have a new account and be on that scorecard.

If on the other hand you’re adding an older account over two years, then you need to be on the no new account scorecard.

If these variables are kept in line you can isolate. And if there is a HP it’s going to be on a different day than the account hits 99% of the time.

Does this mean you can test what you want to when you want to? No, but I posted my DP‘s recently and with other people doing so as well we can definitely come to some conclusions.

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/AAoA-DPs-on-clean-aged-thick-new-accts-C2-scorecard/td-p/5565590/

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 12:19:33 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
EX is actually fascinating because it stayed solid at 670 for months and then hit 671 when BBVA’s inquiry hit in December.

It sounds above like you're suggesting that the addition of an inquiry raised your score, when we all know that isn't the case and isn't possible of course.

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 15:25:04 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
EX is actually fascinating because it stayed solid at 670 for months and then hit 671 when BBVA’s inquiry hit in December.

It sounds above like you're suggesting that the addition of an inquiry raised your score, when we all know that isn't the case and isn't possible of course.

That was straight from Experian. Whether the inquiry was the cause or not, it is certainly odd that my score was stagnant at 670 for so long. I actually had made a post about how I thought my Experian score was broken because it hadn’t moved for so long.

It’s my only score that gets to 670 and stays there. In fact it’s back there right now after a short dip to 662 when my utilization spiked.

For some reason, Experian doesn’t care about inquiries or new accounts.

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

CAS2019 — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 15:54:09 GMT

I wish I had the critical thinking skills a lot of y’all posess. With the exception of the simple math calculations, the rest is Greek to me!

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 15:56:30 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
For some reason, Experian doesn’t care about inquiries or new accounts.

Hi Saeren. Bear in mind that this is a very strong claim. It's conceivable that Experian modified the FICO 8 model so that an entire section of the model was dropped (inquiries, Age of Youngest Account, proportion of accounts on the profile that are new, etc.) but without a lot of strong testing from multiple people the folks here would be unlikely to conclude that is true.

It's easy to test though. A person just needs to wait until his inquiries and youngest account are 13+ months old. At that point his AoYA is 13 months and he has no scorable inquiries. At month 12 and 13 he implements AZEO with a 1-4% utilization. Then he pulls his three FICO 8 scores at Credit Check Total.

After that he adds three new cards with a known Experian pull and waits for all three inquiries and at least one account to appears on his EX report. Then he pulls his scores again at CCT.

If there is zero score change, it would be a sensational discovery and we'd probably find a few other people willing to execute the test too.

That's what would be needed to validate the idea that Experian dropped an entire section of the FICO 8 model.

Re: Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 18:00:30 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
That was straight from Experian. Whether the inquiry was the cause or not, it is certainly odd that my score was stagnant at 670 for so long.

For some reason, Experian doesn’t care about inquiries or new accounts.

I'm, it's just a coincidence. An inquiry isn't going to raise a FICO score. Drop or stay the same sure, but not raise it. This looks like a classic example to me of a score change being unrelated to the alert received.