People always talk about their AAoAs and many worry about it excessively. I figure at some point with your AAoA you reach a number where everything after that has minimal impact in terms of card approvals. For example you could have a 20 year AAoAs , but someone with a 10 year AAoA (all else being equal) would likely have the same results when apping. So at what point do you not need to worry about your AAoAs as much?
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@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
@red259 wrote:People always talk about their AAoAs and many worry about it excessively. I figure at some point with your AAoA you reach a number where everything after that has minimal impact in terms of card approvals. For example you could have a 20 year AAoAs , but someone with a 10 year AAoA (all else being equal) would likely have the same results when apping. So at what point do you not need to worry about your AAoAs as much?
Generally, an AAoA of 5 or more years should be more than adequate for scoring purposes. However, age of oldest account (length of credit history) is a factor as well. Credit histories over 10 years age are viewed positively.If credit history spans 20 years, AAoA may not be weighed as heavily as a profile with only 6 years total credit history.
Card approvals are not really dictated by AAoA. It is more about how much new credit you have applied for recently, length of credit history, Fico score, reported income and to a lesser degree aggregate CL already on file.
Edit add: I forgot to mention the big one - AGGREGATE UTILIZATION status when applying for new credit. High AG UT (above 30%) may mean no go.
OP - thanks for that interesting question and TT - thanks for this explanation. I was always wondering why I did not see much score impact by cutting my AAoA from 18yrs (2 accounts) down to less than 3 yrs in 2013 (8 accounts) and this could be my answer now as there is 1 account with 30yrs of history. 
What I noticed by falling below 6 yrs I could not reach 800 anymore but 799....lol.
FYI - Info on age of oldest account
I've been surveying the forum the last couple of weeks with respect to their AAoA and scores. Feel free to take a look below. Most of people's scores are going to weigh much more heavily on their other credit factors. We've seen very high scores will low AAoA and 800s start to break in at the 4 year level. Any FICOs over 760 give significatnly diminished returns when it comes to securing the best rates.
I assume that Age of Oldest Account doesn't have much influence on changing FICO past 10 years.
The reason I would assume that is that closed accounts age off at 10 years. I personally have a "true"
AoOA of about 35 years, but all my accounts older than 22 years are long since closed and aged off
my reports. My FICO AoOA is 22 years since that is the oldest account still open within the last 10 years.
Likewise, for a fairly thin but old file like mine, my AAoA is skewed by the missing decade of old open accounts.
I had 2 auto loans and 2 credit cards over thirty years ago that have long since disappeared. I have 7 cards and
3 mortgage accounts on my current report with the oldest being 22 years and the average being 11 years. My AAoA
would leap by over a decade if my old accounts were included.
+
850 FICO8 since 2015, Thanks MyFICO - 5+ years since last HP
@olehammer wrote:I've been surveying the forum the last couple of weeks with respect to their AAoA and scores. Feel free to take a look below. Most of people's scores are going to weigh much more heavily on their other credit factors. We've seen very high scores will low AAoA and 800s start to break in at the 4 year level. Any FICOs over 760 give significatnly diminished returns when it comes to securing the best rates.
I like your survey and it asks some good questions and gives us some interesting things to look at, but be careful:
This is a self selected universe, particularly in the area of low AAoA. In other words, the people here with relatively low AAoA are by definition more interested in the effects of FICO scores and their inputs, and are very likely more to be doing the things OTHER than AAoA to effect a positive score relative to the general population. Point being, those folks with 800s and 4 years AAoA are likely to be outliers to some degree with regards to the effects AAoA has on the average credit profile.
(Don't mean to imply that I disagree that things other than AAoA are relatively more important)
