Credit cards

[gerib38]

I am only a few months away from my discharge... i was wondering if i was to be put down aas a user on someoone elses cc would it help me reestablish my credit? ... thinking of having dad put me on his? he has excellent credit .. but wondering if it would hurt or help or make any difference at all

[Amy26]

Maybe just a little by showing a positive account. The most way it will help is with your average age of accounts metric. If your dad has had this account for a very long time it will help you.

[IBroke]

Maybe just a little by showing a positive account. The most way it will help is with your average age of accounts metric. If your dad has had this account for a very long time it will help you.

I do believe they changed that. "Piggybacking" died a few years ago:

http://www.credit.com/press/news/2007/07-22-07.jsp

But it might indeed help in a manual review.

[Amy26]

No, it does still help your credit. It doesn't really affect the overall credit score so much anymore but IT DOES assist with average age of accounts and your utilization. I know I was not able to get my husband any credit (new to the country recently) until I added him as AU on my credit cards. After that, he has finally started getting approvals on his own.

[IBroke]

No, it does still help your credit. It doesn't really affect the overall credit score so much anymore but IT DOES assist with average age of accounts and your utilization..

It might help the AAoA. It MIGHT. Since the OP is talking about RE-establishing credit, we don't know his/her AAoA and the age of the account she wants to become a co-signer on. It might also REDUCE her AAoA - we simply don't know. Same with the utilization - it depends on the balance the other account has and if you are added to somebody else's account, you depend on that person's utilization. If that cardholder maxes out his/her card, it certainly is no help.

You do not need somebody else to get the best possible utilization - it's more a question of being organized and the more CC-accounts you have, the more complicated it gets to to get the best util.

[Amy26]

Well of course, I never said anything that would contradict that and I was speaking in terms of the positive things it can and does. Obviously if the card was maxed out then utilization would be kind of a moot point.

And there is no "might" help on the AAoA, it does (using your assumption that the card being added is an old card). I personally have done it, as I said, with my hubby's credit. As soon as I added my cards to his profile his average age went from 2 months to 2 years.

So, if you want to be really knit picky the answer to gerib's question is: all of the above. It may "hurt or help or make any difference at all "

[IBroke]

Well of course, I never said anything that would contradict that and I was speaking in terms of the positive things it can and does. Obviously if the card was maxed out then utilization would be kind of a moot point.

And there is no "might" help on the AAoA, it does (using your assumption that the card being added is an old card). I personally have done it, as I said, with my hubby's credit. As soon as I added my cards to his profile his average age went from 2 months to 2 years.

So, if you want to be really knit picky the answer to gerib's question is: all of the above. It may "hurt or help or make any difference at all "

So, there is a "might" on the AAoA as well by assuming the age of her father's CC-account. Well, that's all I wanted to say.

I didn't make any "assumption" about the age of the account. I pointed out that this is an unknown factor. Quite the opposite.

I really don't want to be knit picky - I just wanted to make sure that nobody gets any wrong idea. When I'm posting to point out some details, I don't want to "lecture" the member - especially when I'm convinced that this member knows what he/she is talking about (like you in this case). I just want to make sure that members with less experience don't draw any wrong conclusions.