Authorized User/Credit Card/Credit Score

[Robert Fullum]

I'm listed as an authorized user on a few of my parents' credit cards. My plan is to buy my first investment property in about 18 months and i'm trying to get my credit score as high as possible during this time. 

Their credit history is excellent, but their cards do have a fair amount of debt held on them. Removing myself as an authorized user could either help my score (lower utilization ratio) or hurt my score (shorten my credit history, make the few dings on my credit more prevalent.) 

Is there a formula or a resource somewhere i can use to find out if de-authorizing me from those cards will help or hurt my score?

[Richard C.]

Go to creditboards dot com and you will find more information than you ever wanted to know.

The real answer boils down to this:  Those AU accounts probably aren't helping your score much right now, and removing probably won't have much impact one way or the other.  

Here is the best use of an AU account: American Express backdating.

American Express allows you to become an AU on a "cardmember's" account, becoming a "cardmember" yourself, with a "cardmember date" of whenever the primary account holder got the card.  When you later get your own AmEX, youcall them up and they will backdate your own account to that original "cardmember date" AND REPORT THAT AS THE AGE OF YOUR ACCOUNT TO THE BUREAUS!

This has huge impact.  My 20-year-old just got her first Amex in her own name, after having been an authorized user on my account since age 15 years, 6 months.  And her credit report shows an account more than four years old.  

Even better, every time she adds a new Amex product, the same thing will happen, and each new card will actually INCREASE her average age of accounts.

THAT is how you use AU accounts, and how a college student who has never made more than $5000 in any year has a 776 FICO.