Reliable AAOA Calculator or Advice

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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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.

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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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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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.

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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.

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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

[Five6Two]

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@Anonymous wrote:

https://aaoa-calculator.org

Just plug in month and year. 

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

[Anonymous]

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-C...

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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

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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.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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

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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.

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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. 

[CAS2019]

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!

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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

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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.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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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. 

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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.