Which is better: Lower Utilization or Longer Credit History?

[Anonymous]

The good: My girlfriend is on her one of her dads cards that was opened in 1993 that has had a perfect payment history.

The bad: This card is being utilized highly - around 80-90%.

By getting her off the card, she loses almost 15 years of credit history, but her utilization goes down as well. She has a few other accounts opened in the past few years and she uses one regularly (good payment history).

Her score is in the low 700s so I'm leaning towards leaving it alone. Do you think getting her off this account would increase her credit score?

[Anonymous]

How much history does she have?  History does go along way in determining scores.  If she has a pretty good history she will probably take a hit if she removes the account but it shouldn't be too difficult for her to recover but it will take time.  Does the utilization on this card take her over 40% of her total avail credit?

[Anonymous]

She doesn't have much history other than that card (< 2 years) and the card does take up more than 40% of her total utilization. She actually only has one other active account and its a capOne card (ugh). I have a feeling the history on this card trumps the utilization issue. I'm thinking about just leaving this card on for another couple of years until she can establish some credit history of her own.

Message Edited by Justin_Bailey on 04-04-2007 06:41 AM