To AU or not to AU?

[Anonymous]

I've been vaguely (very vaguely, little more than an "I wonder what if...?" ) contemplating asking my husband to make me an AU on one of his cards, as I'm worried my rather short credit history puts me in a shaky position and at risk of AA (although I've had none yet, but...) - I've been wondering whether adding the age/history of any of his accounts might help boost my scores a little bit and maybe help out a little. He's an AU on my AmEx, so...!

The three cards that would be an option are:

Target Visa - 6 years old, limit $2500, always a 0 balance. 

Chase - 5 years old, limit $3500, currently has about 20% util reporting, but it's usually less than 5%. If I were to be an AU on this one, I wouldn't do it 'til the balance is back to its usual <5%.

BofA - 5 years old, v. high limit (much higher than any of mine), currently at 7% util (paying off a BT), should be down to 0 in a few months.  

My AAoAs is 14 months right now, and in a couple of months my first few accounts will hit their second birthdays. Adding a 5/6 year old account wouldn't do a massive amount for my AAoAs - would having an "oldest account" a few years older than the others do good or bad things to my score, does anyone know? I'm thinking an oldest card of 5+ years may either give me a little boost, or may do horrible things to my score due to rebucketing!  

Soooo... any ideas? Should I just not bother, as we're talking 5 or 6 years of history as opposed to 15 or 20? If I did bother, any idea what kind of score effects it might have? I know FICOs are far from the be all and end all, of course, but anything higher has to be good! Do all of the above banks report AUs? If I were to be AU on the high-limit BofA card, would that likely do more harm than good (don't want to freak out my "real" creditors by suddenly having 70% more credit available overnight!)...? Any other thoughts on anything? Any input most welcome!

(Editing to add: this would be solely for account age purposes, as my utilization never goes above 3%... I already have plenty of good cards of my own, they're just very young cards!) 

Message Edited by fevmlo on 03-08-2009 08:53 PM

[wemmington]

I know for a fact bofa and chase do report au.  If I were you I would try it to see what it does to scores, if they actually go down you just have to call and be removed so your score will go back to where they were before.

I called to get removed from a bofa au card on 3/6 and asked if they could update credit bureau and in less than 12 hours it dropped off my Ex (crazy quick), still waiting for Eq and Tu.    

[Anonymous]

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@wemmington wrote:

I know for a fact bofa and chase do report au.  If I were you I would try it to see what it does to scores, if they actually go down you just have to call and be removed so your score will go back to where they were before.

I called to get removed from a bofa au card on 3/6 and asked if they could update credit bureau and in less than 12 hours it dropped off my Ex (crazy quick), still waiting for Eq and Tu.    

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That's a good idea - I guess it's not as though it's something that can never be removed if the effects turn out to be bad rather than good. I'm sure I've read that BofA reports AUs very quickly (they report everything else - new cards, BTs, etc, quickly, so why not AUs!), but anyone know about Chase? I'm thinking the huge-limit BofA card would probably NOT be the best one to go for, and erring on the side of Chase, once it's back down to its usual barely-any-balance. Hmm. 

[wemmington]

In my experience most cards report on the statement date (some cards report a month behind, so a month from statement date) and then will show on credit file 1-5 days later.  The added age can be great but perosnally I wouldnt add any cards with large balance.  

Figure out your total utilization and make sure that by adding au cards your total utilization won't increase as that could hurt your scores. 

Also I would try the truecredit free trail (transunion daily pull) as it seems to be the only service that show the exact date last reported-most just show month/date.

Message Edited by wemmington on 03-08-2009 11:19 PM