Average Age of Accounts
- Thread starter Haley
- Start date
Don't know the formula they use but it could easily be an average:
EG 3 accounts citi 2 yrd, amex 5 years, discover 5 years weighted average=
(2+5+5)/3= 4 Year Average Age
If you were to lose your discover acct from that
(2+5)/2 = 2.5 Year Average Age
You could take the same concept within each issuer for average history:
EG 3 accts at Cit: 7yr,5yr,3yr = average at citi of 15/3 for 5yr.
If you then a had 3 citi cards per above, 1 amex, 1 discover you could have a weighted or absolute answer:
EG killing the 7yr Citi card = citi becomes 4yr, amex 5 year discover 5 year which could mean 14/3 for average age of 4.6667
Or killing the citi 7yr could create a (5,3,5,5)/4 for 4.5yr
That's a couple of ways to approach the impact mathematically.
EG 3 accounts citi 2 yrd, amex 5 years, discover 5 years weighted average=
(2+5+5)/3= 4 Year Average Age
If you were to lose your discover acct from that
(2+5)/2 = 2.5 Year Average Age
You could take the same concept within each issuer for average history:
EG 3 accts at Cit: 7yr,5yr,3yr = average at citi of 15/3 for 5yr.
If you then a had 3 citi cards per above, 1 amex, 1 discover you could have a weighted or absolute answer:
EG killing the 7yr Citi card = citi becomes 4yr, amex 5 year discover 5 year which could mean 14/3 for average age of 4.6667
Or killing the citi 7yr could create a (5,3,5,5)/4 for 4.5yr
That's a couple of ways to approach the impact mathematically.
Haley
I am not a robot
Ok, I posted before I was done. 
Every new account dilutes my aged accounts.
Is there a stradedgy that helps reduce the impact? Is there a stradedgy for new players we could come up with?
What I'm wondering is if opening new cards in either of these patterns makes a difference
Y= total # of accounts reporting
X= # of cards opened last year
New accounts this year X-1 or X+1 or X?
Relationship of X to Y effect?
Every new account dilutes my aged accounts.
Is there a stradedgy that helps reduce the impact? Is there a stradedgy for new players we could come up with?
What I'm wondering is if opening new cards in either of these patterns makes a difference
Y= total # of accounts reporting
X= # of cards opened last year
New accounts this year X-1 or X+1 or X?
Relationship of X to Y effect?
Caveating with my mind is a mess right now with too many calcs going on my gut feeling says it wouldn't be a big impact because everything has aged 11yrs along with it.
SuperSaver
New Member
I'll leave it to the mathematicians to confirm or refute this, but it seems to me that a strategy might be to close any account with a less than the average age (newest account would seem to be the best one) and then open a new account. I'd guess the average age still drops but less than it would have.
The issue is that all closed accounts remain for 10 years after the date of closing, this complicates the math. Closing accounts won't affect AAoA for 10 years, until those accounts drop off. They will continue to be below the AAoA of the overall credit report (assuming new account or accounts don't pull the AAoA below the age of the closed account or accounts). Opening new accounts affects immediately of course.
damanjeff6
Level 2 Member
and how do the back dated amex cards affect the average age?
If the backdating means that any new Amex card has essentially the same age as my oldest Amex card, it seems that repeatedly opening and closing new accounts (say leave it open for 6 months) will actually boost my average age figure?
Haley
I am not a robot
IIRC AmEx reports year of oldest account but month of account open would be month you open, so yes opening AmEx cards can help. They are not one I'd go opening and closing accounts too often with.
Just be aware age of newest account might have a bigger impact on this aspect of your credit than AAoA.
About the 11 year old accounts, the closed ones drop off, open ones would keep reporting.
Hypothetical case, person opens 10 accounts every year. Closes all 10 at 11 months. AAoA would be 5 years after 10 years but never age past that.
If all 10 were converted to a fee free card and kept open in year 11 AAoA would be 5.5 and each year would add .5 years to AAoA.
That math is fairly simple.
I just can't figure out how to think about if you either have many more or many fewer cards in one or two years and if keeping some % of cards open will balance that out.
Plus a 5 year AAoA is pretty low.
Just be aware age of newest account might have a bigger impact on this aspect of your credit than AAoA.
About the 11 year old accounts, the closed ones drop off, open ones would keep reporting.
Hypothetical case, person opens 10 accounts every year. Closes all 10 at 11 months. AAoA would be 5 years after 10 years but never age past that.
If all 10 were converted to a fee free card and kept open in year 11 AAoA would be 5.5 and each year would add .5 years to AAoA.
That math is fairly simple.
I just can't figure out how to think about if you either have many more or many fewer cards in one or two years and if keeping some % of cards open will balance that out.
Plus a 5 year AAoA is pretty low.
SuperSaver
New Member
Good point. I had read online (so it must be true) that the new scoring model wouldn't count closed accounts, but a review of the MyFICO forums indicates that they are still counted in the AA0A.
Haley
I am not a robot
Actually it is that FICO counts them and Vantage does not.
I can attest that opening two Amex cards in January improved my AAoA due to backdating.
Besides PRG, I got the 1x Blue with 10K bonus. Didn't want to waste an opportunity for an increased signup bonus, and since they merged hard pulls, why not get more MR and an AAoA boost for free?
Besides PRG, I got the 1x Blue with 10K bonus. Didn't want to waste an opportunity for an increased signup bonus, and since they merged hard pulls, why not get more MR and an AAoA boost for free?
SJCRussell
Level 2 Member
I speculate that in our situation (high volume of apps over the years) this will all wash out as by the time you start to see cards with 10+ years drop off your total card months will be so much larger. Nominator vs. denominator - when you grow the top half of the fraction by so much, reducing the bottom has less impact.
This implies you can't afford to stop applying for cards!!
This implies you can't afford to stop applying for cards!!
El Ingeniero
Level 2 Member
My strategy is to keep 10 or 15 no annual fee cards forever, while churning 10 or 12 offers a year
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Gloobnib
Travel Burninator
FWIW - Not only does Amex back date, but they back date decades! I recently got Amex to fix my 'back date' to match with a 25+ year old Amex Optima that I signed up for when I was a college Freshmen (it was a brand new card back then).
The best part? Their online records don't go back that far, so they couldn't see details on my old account. I told them "it was definitely in the late 80's, probably 87 or 88"). They said they would research and get back to me. Turns out they decided to take the easiest course of action and round down to .... Jan 1 1980. I wasn't even in high school yet!
Long story short (too late) - my credit reports this month reflect 3 consumer cards from Amex with AoA dating back to 1980. My AAoA literally doubled in under 6 weeks (going from about 3.5 to about 7.5)!
For years I was kicking myself that all I got from that stupid Optima signup was 2 years of AFs and "3 free music CDs". Now, I'm thinking it was one of the smartest things I did in my Freshmen year. Well, not really, but it is definitely cool to get this unexpected bonus 25+ years later.
El Ingeniero
Level 2 Member
I should talk my mom into making me an AU on whatever amex card she has, and then get Amex to make the date the same on all my cards.
is there a specific number or dept that you need to call to get this done. My current AAoA is < 5 yrs (since the time i came to the US) but i have been an Amex customer overseas since 2004.
Gloobnib
Travel Burninator
I did it via online chat. It took them until the next business day to "fix" the backdate for me. As I told them "I've waited 20 years, I can wait a few more days."
You can only do that if your amex is Amex-issued, not issued by another bank.
See https://www.americanexpress.com/global-card-transfers/ for details.
El Turk
Level 14 Insurance Salesman
Online chat got backdating up and running for me, too. They didn't have the date recorded, but I knew that my mom had me as an AU on her account that had been open since forever. I told this to them, and they said they'd fix my member since date right away. According to the new date, I've been a member since I was 2 years old!
crap, mine was issued by a another bank. thanks for the info anyway.
Gloobnib
Travel Burninator
Of course! I definitely approached by saying (chatting) something very much along the lines of "I saw one of my friend's Blue cards and it had a member since date from the 90s. I asked him how this is possible since the card has only been around for a few years. He explained that all of his cards show Member Since he opened his first Amex card. Can you help me update my cards to show my correct Member Since date?"
Gloobnib
Travel Burninator
Probably my fault.
But seriously, it did work for me when I requested it in the first half of February. It definitely had a huge impact on my FAKO (both creditkarma and creditsesame were in the range of +20 points) as well as my 'real' FICO as reported by Barclays (+20ish points) and Citi (+27ish points). It may have been even higher than that, since I had also opened a new credit line that month with another bank.
Bummer, I procrastinated on this. But then again, CreditBoards said this was dead back in 09/2014. So I don't know if we should trust the info spreading around in the credit forums.
Reported on DoC too, a few days ago.
damanjeff6
Level 2 Member
I don't think this is true, at least not 9/2014. I applied for a 2nd OBC on 3/30/15 got backdated.
Jack
Keep Calm and Carry On
The new card will still have your original membership date printed on it but the change is that it will report on your credit reports as opened on the real opening date. It probably has not reported to your credit report yet. AMEX sometimes takes a month or two. It will be something to check in a month or so if it reports as opened on 3/30/15 or as your original membership date. This change reportedly took place on 3/21 so cards that reported before 3/21 report as the original membership date on the credit report whereas cards reporting for the first time after 3/21 are reporting as new cards opened this year. AMEX cards first reported before 3/21 keep reporting the original membership date.
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MnWolf
Level 2 Member
I was really pleased when I was added as an AU on my DW's Discover card, and it popped up as a 18 year old account on my credit report. So I tried the same thing with her AMEX. She added me as an AU, but unfortunately it just showed up on my credit report as a brand new account, with an age of one month. But at least it's a relatively high credit limit.