Without knowing the full number of how many accounts she has and when they were all opened, it's difficult to even speculate exactly what effect adding her as an AU would have. Amex reports the opening date for AU cards as the day they were added, so it would be the same as her opening a new account, which can hurt a score temporarily. If she literally just had the BOA card and this one, it would half her average age of accounts, but that wouldn't necessairly cause a score change because half would still be 9 years. But adding a new account is seldom a positive, except in cases where it substantially lowers utilization, creates more than 50% of cards without a balance, and other similar factors. If this is the sole AU card on her reports and it is reporting a zero balance, there would be an all zero penalty (there is an all zero penalty for both primary and AU accounts with FICO scoring). However, any negative scoring factors are not going to be some extreme that she would drop to 700 FICO scores or anything like that due to adding a new account.
Adding someone as AU with already established credit history is not going to impact their score. However I always believe married people should use join accounts to maximize rewards! 🤷♂
@pmakh wrote:Hello!
Would love some insight as I am new in taking control of my credit journey. Long story short, I screwed up my credit in my 20s. I've now been working on re-building my credit for a bit. I was approved for the AMEX Blue Cash Preferred back in November 2023. So about a 4 month old card. My spouse has amazing credit 790-800 across the 3 bureaus. Her oldest credit card is a BoA that is almost 18 years old. My Amex currently has no balance on it. Would adding her as an authorized user hurt her score?
Since your credit profiles are so different, I would advise against it.
