If I become an AU on an AMEX held by my wife, will the age of the account bear on my credit score? Also, are there any negatives to becoming an AU? Will it drag her scores down in some way? She is in the high 700's I am between 560-650.
The age of the account will factor into your FICO, as it will change the average age of your accounts (unless of course it's the same as your current average). As I understand it, her score will take a hit, although I don't think it's as big of a hit as it is a raise of your score. I'm not totally sure about this one. The only negatives to becoming an AU is that if her credit takes a dive, then yours will too.
The cardowner's account shouldn't take a dive at all. After all, they still are the one responsible for paying the account and nothing else about it changes. The point about the negative, though, that's spot on. If her credit does take a dive, one can also ask to have the AU tradeline removed.
Amex requires a SSN to add an authorized user. From what I have experienced, as long as your wife's payments have all been on time and she plans to pay them on time, it should help your score in the long run. I have several employees that are AU on my Amex and my fathers, and their score takes a hit if my balance at the billing cycle is high. Although we pay the card off several times a month and do NOT carry a balance, some times when it cycles we owe 25K. Amex reports the balance on your closing date from the previous month. ie, if your sept 10th billing cycle was $5,219, they will report that on about Oct 10th. After I noticed this recently, we are doing our best to pay it the off the day before, and the day the account cycles. We charge over 10k a day on the cards for business purposes, so it is difficult to time our payments just right.
