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(1) Yes
(2) It should be fine based on what you described. After adding your teen to your card(s) it should take six months for scores to generate
(3) Yes
(4) If you want to start his credit history with a boost it will help. What depends here is if you're looking to boost his credit profile or are you actually giving him the cards
You can add him at 17 to most cards. Some have no minimum age, Discover advertises 15 years as the minimum age.
If the card is in good standing, low util as mentioned it won't hurt him. I don't have kids, but if I did what I likely would do is add them as it would help them and monitor their spend closely. I would also encourage them to get a student card to start building non AU history.
My DGF put both her son and daughter, 14 & 17 at the time respectively on both her Amex and Navy flagship card. She was able to also set limits on their cards so they didn't have access to the TCL which was very nice. I think the minimum for Amex is 150 and the minimum for navy federal is 100. About a month after the daughter turned 18 she apped for her own navy card and was approved for a 3k limit at 9.xx apr - not bad in my humble opinion for a first credit card ever for a kid. Navy has been good to her and us, so we have no complaints.
@addicted_to_credit wrote:My DGF put both her son and daughter, 14 & 17 at the time respectively on both her Amex and Navy flagship card. She was able to also set limits on their cards so they didn't have access to the TCL which was very nice. I think the minimum for Amex is 150 and the minimum for navy federal is 100. About a month after the daughter turned 18 she apped for her own navy card and was approved for a 3k limit at 9.xx apr - not bad in my humble opinion for a first credit card ever for a kid. Navy has been good to her and us, so we have no complaints.
That would be an awfully long time to become eligible as an AU!! 😄
@FinStar , it definitely would... I'll clarify though 😁. Minimum CL for Amex and Navy AU's is 200 and 100 respectively according to the DGF!
@simplynoir wrote:(1) Yes
(2) It should be fine based on what you described. After adding your teen to your card(s) it should take six months for scores to generate
(3) Yes
(4) If you want to start his credit history with a boost it will help. What depends here is if you're looking to boost his credit profile or are you actually giving him the cards
@simplynoir No it should not take six months for the score to generate.
The minimum requirements are that the person not be on the Social Security administration's death list, that the person have one account at least six months old and at least one account that has updated in the last six months.
As long as OP's card was opened more than six months ago and has updated in the last six months, teen should have a score upon it reporting. If it is caught by the anti-abuse algorithm, I don't know what will happen, but he'll still have mortgage scores even if that were to theoretically to stop version 8+ scores.
The exception of course is American Express which will put the account opening date as the date the teen is added as an authorized user. But with most issuers that's not a problem.
@Anonymous wrote:
@simplynoir wrote:(1) Yes
(2) It should be fine based on what you described. After adding your teen to your card(s) it should take six months for scores to generate
(3) Yes
(4) If you want to start his credit history with a boost it will help. What depends here is if you're looking to boost his credit profile or are you actually giving him the cards
@simplynoir No it should not take six months for the score to generate.
The minimum requirements are that the person not be on the Social Security administration's death list, that the person have one account at least six months old and at least one account that has updated in the last six months.
As long as OP's card was opened more than six months ago and has updated in the last six months, teen should have a score upon it reporting. If it is caught by the anti-abuse algorithm, I don't know what will happen, but he'll still have mortgage scores even if that were to theoretically to stop version 8+ scores.
The exception of course is American Express which will put the account opening date as the date the teen is added as an authorized user. But with most issuers that's not a problem.
Ah, I confused the card opening times with people with no credit compared to the AU timeline here. Thank you for the correction
I can only picture John Belushi and the rest of the Delta Tau Chi Fraternity with a $50k Visa
I don't know the requirements for all credit cards, but I know what I did personally. I added my 15-year-old son as an AU to my Capital One Quicksilver and my HSBC Cash Rewards Mastercard.
This isn't a credit card, but I tried to get him a Schwab debit card, but Schwab told me that they cannot add a minor (<18).