practical AAoA score impact of closing older cards

[expatCanuck]

Hi folks.  As my sig shows, I'm finally in good shape, score-wise.  No need for new credit on the horizon.  To simplify life, I'm inclined to start closing/consolidating credit cards.  That said, the target (low limit) cards are also some of my oldest.  Two part question:

1) Is my understanding correct that, in all likelihood  ('cause I know that there's no guarantee), if I close a card or three, the closure is unlikely to impact my FICO AAoA calculation for a decade? [I know it'll impact my total amount of credit and aggregate util, but former will stay above 150K;  the latter will remain below 4%.]

2) If the closure were to immediately impact my AAoA, can anyone offer a worst-case score hit?

(For kicks, let's say my AAoA went from its current 7 years to 3.5 years and the oldest account went from 20 years to 10).  Currently, my FICO Payment History, Amount of Debt and Credit Mix are all 'Exceptional'; Length of Credit is 'Very Good'; Amount of New Credit is in the gutter (2 hard pulls in December (1x CLI, 1x phone), 2 new cards mid-October, one in May, one in April, and 4 more had their first anniversary last month).

For bonus marks -- thoughts on VantageScore 3.0 impact?

('cause Chase and Cap One seem to care about those)

Insight welcome.

[Anonymous]

The answer is #1 so no need to speculate #2 or bonus round. 

[DIYcredit]

It kind of works like this.Any credit accounts will continue to age as long as the accounts are still on your credit report weather they are closed are not.If a cc is closed and you owe a balance the balance will will count toward cc utilization,but the credit limit will not.I recommend keeping your oldest cc account open because the longer you keep the cc open the better it is for your Fico score. 

[Anonymous]

Chase and Cap One IMO don't care about the VS 3.0 scores they provide... they simply provide them because it's super cheap for them to do so.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Chase and Cap One IMO don't care about the VS 3.0 scores they provide... they simply provide them because it's super cheap for them to do so.

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BBVA uses VS 3.0 in their credit making decisions, my cost of credit letter had both FICO and VS on there so there’s at least one lender who actually uses them in part to make decisions. 

As for AAoA, unless something drastic changes, all positive closed accounts remain on your report for at least 10 years. 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

As for AAoA, unless something drastic changes, all positive closed accounts remain on your report for at least 10 years. 

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What do you mean by drastic changes and positive closed accounts?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

As for AAoA, unless something drastic changes, all positive closed accounts remain on your report for at least 10 years. 

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What do you mean by drastic changes and positive closed accounts?

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I mean unless the reporting rules are changed. We can’t say with absolute certainty that positive accounts will stay for 10 years in the future, we can only tell how it is currently. 

[Anonymous]

I guess I'm not understanding the word positive above.  What does it matter if the account is positive (or negative) if it's closed in terms of it remaining on one's report for the standard amount of time?

[iv]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I guess I'm not understanding the word positive above.  What does it matter if the account is positive (or negative) if it's closed in terms of it remaining on one's report for the standard amount of time?

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I believe that @Anonymous is referring to that fact that while negative items are removed at 7.5 years by law, the 10 year "standard" for removing closed postive items is merely a convention on the part of the CRAs, and could be changed to a longer or shorter period of time by the CRAs at will. (Not that it's likely, though.)

[NRB525]

OP congrats on getting over 800.

Are your figures realistic, that if you closed your three oldest accounts, those are all over 10, up to 20 years old and your next oldest is 10 years max?

Which three cards are you considering closing, and why?

A no-AF card that is your oldest gets some sort of halo unless you have another more popular card that is say two years younger.