Amex Green!!!

[Amiashu12]

Hello Everyone. First I wanna give huge thanks to this community. It has helped me big time. I just got approved for Amex green (a charged card). I am an authorized user for Amex gold under my dad's account. I was wondering since I am a card member, will it hurt my score if i closed the amex gold authorized user account? Also, what is the best way to increase myfico scores? 

This is what I currently have. Amex green charged card, Capital one credit limit $4500 and discover it $1400. Overall util is under 20%. Thanks for help in advanc. 

[Anonymous]

Having oneself taken off AU status on another person's card often results in that account being deleted completely from one's own reports.  We can't know what the impact of that might be, because we don't know the age of each of your other accounts and the age of that AU account.  Suppose your AU account (as it appears on your reports) is 20 years old, with the other accounts being 0, 1, and 2 years old.  Losing the AU account from your reports would hurt your score substantially.  On the other hand, suppose the AU account was 1 year old, and the other accounts were 0, 2, and 4 years old.  Then losing the AU account would help your score.  We also don't know if that account has any lates associated with it.

In the short term, you'll get the most help by paying all cards to zero except one, with the remaining card (the Discover or Cap1) showing a small positive balance.

If you have a longer time frame, we'd need to know:

How much time?

Will you be buying a home?

Do you currently have an open installment account?  (E.g. loan, car lease, etc.)

Do you have any derogs (lates, collections, charegeoffs, etc.)?

[Amiashu12]

Thanks for the quick reply. So, I checked the AAoa for all the accts. Not in hurry to buy a home.

Capitalone opened in 02/2016 CL $4500

Amex gold Authorized user opened in 05/2017 no lates associated with this account.

Discover it opened 04/2018 CL $1400.

Open installment car loan opened in 04/2016

I have 2 charged off 1 credit card and one personal loan. 

I have three lates.

[Anonymous]

Feel free to remove yourself from the AU card whenever you like.  It is not helping you.

Pay down your CC debt as I indictated.

Then hop over to the rebuilding forum and work with them on strategies on getting your derogs removed.  This might take a long time and it isn't certain to occur.  But derog removal will help you the most.

After you have had your CC debt paid way down for a few months in a row, you might want to consider opening another true credit card (no annual fee and not a charge card.)  I think that's a good investment long term.

PS.  Just curious, what to you is the advantage in paying the annual fee for the Green Card? 

[Amiashu12]

Thanks again. As far as the annuel fee concern, when i tried prequalify link, it only showed gold and green. So I just went with the low annuel fee. If it had showed me other option with no annuel fee, i would have gone with that. I had tried for amex cashback in march but was declined.

[Anonymous]

OK.  Keep the Green for a while, since you already have it, but down the road you'll eventually want to get rid of it.  That's because it is a card with an annual fee that is not giving you some wonderful awesome good thing that you can't get anywhere else (a huge signup bonus, 1st class seating on all your flights, whatever).  Always avoid paying annual fees except in the cases I described.

But since you have it, keep it for a couple years if you are ok paying that fee.  2-3 years from now you may have a couple other no annual fee credit cards and you can ditch it.