Question on AU

[Anonymous]

My wife has an old credit card that’s paid off, would adding me as an authorized signer increase my score, it’s a fully paid off card.

I currently have 4 others, 3 of them paid and one has a low balance.

Question - does the process of adding a card or going from 4 to 5 cards help or hurt your score?

[cyrusvalentino]

Lots of factors would have to be known to answer this; What’s her AAoA on that account? What’s your AAoA? Does the account have any late payments? If so, how old?

In short, your overall utilization would benefit but if it would hurt other areas of your credit isn’t known based on what you’ve provided. Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Zero late payments and I just looked, that card has been opened for 18 years!

[Anonymous]

Zero late payments and I just looked, that card has been opened for 18 years! 6k limit and we owe nothing on it.

[Anonymous]

We just did something similar. My husband has an account in great standing (<9% utilization) that is 18 years old, $15000 CL. My AAoA ws about 3 years. I have several open cards in good standing. My score jumped 20 points on the day his account was added to my report. 

[simplynoir]

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@Anonymouswrote:
Zero late payments and I just looked, that card has been opened for 18 years! 6k limit and we owe nothing on it.

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If your credit is relatively young then yes I think adding this card will increase your scores.

[Anonymous]

You have answered most of Cyrus' questions, but not all of them.

The crucial thing that everything turns on is whether the other person's card (on which you'd be added as an AU) is much older than your oldest account.  We now know that the card is 18 years old.  If your oldest account is 3 years old, adding it will give you a good boost.  If your oldest account is 15 years old, it will give you almost no help.

The general idea is to choose a card that is clean (no lates), that can often report a zero balance (and always a low utilization), and which is MUCH older than your oldest account.  If all three are true, it's worth doing.