Age of Credit... How to speed it up or work around it...

[Anonymous]

I am rebuilding since Dec 2017, from 545/TU and 551/EQU, to now 717/TRU and 736/EQU.  All my research and hard work is paying off bigtime.  My average credit age shows only at 1.2 yrs/TRU and 1.3 yrs/EQU.  If I close a secured card ($700 CL) that I opened 1.5 years ago, for an unsecured Cap 1 card ($3000 CL) that I JUST GOT this week, will the higher credit limit outweight closing of the secured card in terms of credit age and score?  Please note: the secured card is only reporting to one bureau and the Capital One card will be reported to all three bureaus.  What's the best move here?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I am rebuilding since Dec 2017, from 545/TU and 551/EQU, to now 717/TRU and 736/EQU.  All my research and hard work is paying off bigtime.  My average credit age shows only at 1.2 yrs/TRU and 1.3 yrs/EQU.  If I close a secured card ($700 CL) that I opened 1.5 years ago, for an unsecured Cap 1 card ($3000 CL) that I JUST GOT this week, will the higher credit limit outweight closing of the secured card in terms of credit age and score?  Please note: the secured card is only reporting to one bureau and the Capital One card will be reported to all three bureaus.  What's the best move here?

Closing the secured card will have no effect on your Average Age of Accounts (AAoA).  This is because the account will remain on your credit report for 10 years so even though its closed it will continue to contribute to your AAoA.  By the time it falls off in 10 years your other account will have also aged so there will be change.

[Anonymous]

A few things.

One, there's no "quick fix" or way to increase your age of accounts factors.  The only piece of advice that someone may give you is to add yourself as an authorized user to someone else's account that's very old.  When the account shows up on your CR it could positively impact your AoOA and AAoA.  This is a way to artificially inflate those numbers, though, so you aren't really improving your age of accounts factors.

You also referenced TU and EQ (no EX) which is a red flag that you may be looking at Credit Karma.  Is that the case?  If so, their age of accounts info on their front end software is bogus, as it only includes your currently open accounts, not all accounts on your CR.  Closed accounts count the same as open accounts when looking at age of accounts factors.

[tooleman694]

I am going for the long game, during my rebuild I opened a ton of accounts and hammered my AAoAs into the ground. But they should age nicely over the years.

[Anonymous]

AAoA isn't a score card assignment factor, where AoOA is.  My advice is for people to focus on AoOA, that is, open an account as early on when they are young as possible and keep that thing open forever.  With a solid/growing AoOA in place, which does impact score card assignment, AAoA drop(s) from new accounts/sprees is quite secondary IMO.

[Anonymous]

Yes, that is correct.  I am referring to Credit Karma scores.  This would explain why Experian shows my credit age as 19 years long.  While I wasn't using credit for almost (5) years, I was none-the-less shocked to think I might be totally starting over.  I will highly consider closing the secured card.  Afterall, it would be nice to add the $700 to savings!  This forum is great; thanks again!

[Anonymous]

What is the wording behind the acronyms (AAoA and AoOA);  I could guess, but want to be sure.

[FinStar]

AAoA = Average Age of Account(s)

AoOA = Average of Oldest Account(s)

[RobertEG]

Average age of all accounts (AAOA)

Age of oldest account (AOOA)

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

The first thing you'll need is a delorean and some plutonium. Or at least something that can produce 1.21 jiggawatts.

Just kidding. There's no shortcutting age. Like mentioned earlier, you can become an authorized user, but banks like chase remove that from the equation.