How much will adding spouse as AU help his score?

[lilyflower]

Hi all, 

 

I've successfully rebuilt myself to a high 700s score and 11% utilization with less to be reported soon.   I have no negatives and no individual card with more than a 20% balance as I pay off my remaining debt.   I have an AAoA of 8+ years.   My spouse has a clean report but high utilization that is tanking his score (no negatives JUST utilization).   

How much will it help to have him as an AU on my accounts?   I'm trying to help raise his score and we'll be tackling his debt using my credit as soon as I'm PIF 

[shifter]

Depends on how his util is distributed. If he has multiple maxed cards (over 89.5% util) the additional credit won't help nearly as much as if he just has a bunch of balances that are under, say, 69.5%.

[lilyflower]

Most of his cards are I believe around 50% due to credit line decreases and the like.

Thanks, my ultimate goal is to get both of our outstanding debt paid off.   I don't have a lot left so I was going to use my credit score to eventually help him but that's going to take me a few months and some strategic manuevering on my part to not tank anything of mine and screw us both

Edited January 17, 2025 by lilyflower

[shifter]

1 hour ago, lilyflower said:

Most of his cards are I believe around 50% due to credit line decreases and the like.

Then adding cards with high limits and low balances will definitely improve his score. Substantially if you can add a significant amount of CL.