How does closing a card affects your AAoA?

[Anonymous]

Howdy people!

I just merged my 3500 + 2800 Quicksilvers into a single 6.3 QuickSilver, I figured is easier to manage and will allow me to carry a balance in case I need without really affecitng my overall UT. However after I merged the accounts it let me thinking..

We always read that an account remains in the bureaus 10 after closing them, but I don't really undersandt  how they account for it after closure, let me see If I can explain properly, and please do pardon any grammar/semantics mistakes, English is not my native language.

In my case , my first QA was 2years old while the latter was 1 year old, obvioysly I merged the 2nd into the first one to keep the oldest line open,  but how the closed card will be reporting for the following next years ? Always as 1 year old  ? If that's the case then clossing a card can potentially affect your AAoA, see the followign scenarios:, and assume I only have 2 cards

If both cards were open 

CARD A -- CARD B --- AAoA

24m               12m            18m

25m               13m            19m

26m               14m            20m

.

.

.

36m               24m            30m

now consider I closed card B :

CARD A -- CARD B --- AAoA

24m               12m            18m

25m               12m            18.5m

26m               12m            19m

.

.

.

36m               12m            24m

I'm not really sure how a card is accounted after closure but it looks to me like it would affect AAoA , thoughts?

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Howdy people!

I just merged my 3500 + 2800 Quicksilvers into a single 6.3 QuickSilver, I figured is easier to manage and will allow me to carry a balance in case I need without really affecitng my overall UT. However after I merged the accounts it let me thinking..

We always read that an account remains in the bureaus 10 after closing them, but I don't really undersandt  how they account for it after closure, let me see If I can explain properly, and please do pardon any grammar/semantics mistakes, English is not my native language.

In my case , my first QA was 2years old while the latter was 1 year old, obvioysly I merged the 2nd into the first one to keep the oldest line open,  but how the closed card will be reporting for the following next years ? Always as 1 year old  ? If that's the case then clossing a card can potentially affect your AAoA, see the followign scenarios:, and assume I only have 2 cards

If both cards were open 

CARD A -- CARD B --- AAoA

24m               12m            18m

25m               13m            19m

26m               14m            20m

.

.

.

36m               24m            30m

now consider I closed card B :

CARD A -- CARD B --- AAoA

24m               12m            18m

25m               12m            18.5m

26m               12m            19m

.

.

.

36m               12m            24m

I'm not really sure how a card is accounted after closure but it looks to me like it would affect AAoA , thoughts?

---

The closed card will still report positive for 10 years.  After that time it will drop off your reports and then you'll either take a hit on AAoA or maybe not much at all.  Depends on how many other accounts you have that will be aging for the next ten years.

I hope I explained that well enough.

[CH-7-Mission-Accomplished]

In your example, you are assuming that the closed card will get no older than it is at the time of closing.  In the case of your example, you assume it will only be counted as a one year old account going forward.

The closed account continues to age througout the remaining 10 years on file.

If you had a five-year-old account and closed it, it would count as a six-year-old- account in 12 months, a seven-year-old account in 24 months, all the way up to the point it drops off where it would count as a 15 year old account.

[takeshi74]

There's a sticky for that:

http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Closing-Credit-Cards/m-p/347190?jump=true