Credit question: importance of account holder vs. authorized user

In My Humble Opinion
1

The situation described below comes from a hypothetical discussion and is not real. In other words, do not need answer fast. :slight_smile: My Google searches provided some information, but not anything I saw that directly answered the questions below. This thread encourages both personal experience, sourced GQ-type answers and reasoned speculation for responses!

Spouse A is a person who has achieved excellent credit over the past few years. Among other positives, Spouse A’s credit report reveals five open credit card accounts, all in good standing with no late payments or negative info. However, only one of those accounts is actually in Spouse A’s name, and that account was opened in 2013. The other accounts are in Spouse B’s name, where Spouse A is listed as an authorized user (and the credit bureaus report Spouse A as such), and each of those cards has a lengthy positive history behind it dating back to around 2001.

If Spouse B were to die, or if the couple were to split up, how much would Spouse A’s credit and credit history be impacted by no longer having access to the accounts where he/she is listed as an authorized user? Granted, it wouldn’t change the length of Spouse A’s total credit history, but I assume it would change the average account age. I have no idea how significant that is to someone’s credit score.

Also, if Spouse B died, how likely is it that the credit card companies would convert Spouse A into being the account holder? Do most card companies have a policy for that? In other words, is there a scenario where Spouse A would be able to maintain the same account history where it would appear on credit reports that he or she had held those accounts open and active since 2001, rather than having to start fresh with each credit card company?

2

Don’t know about spouses, but I was an authorized user of my mother’s credit cards when she went into assisted care. Cards issued in my name, but under her credit history. When she died those cards were cancelled immediately by the bank. None of her credit history impacted my credit at all, positive or negative. When asked, the banks said her credit history died with her, and the cards couldn’t be transferred.

3

Just to be clear, I assume you mean none of that history impacted your history at any time, right? In one of my searches, I ran across something that suggested it was entirely up to the credit card companies whether or not to report usage by the authorized user, so it may or may not benefit the AU’s credit score.

For this scenario, I’m assuming that Spouse A is an active user of all of the cards in question, and that the credit card companies are reporting his or her usage. I would guess that being an authorized user means that the same information (either positive or negative) has less of an impact on a credit score as an authorized user than it would as an account holder. But I don’t know that.

4

Correct. My mother had amazing credit. Too bad it didn’t bump mine up a bit. :stuck_out_tongue: