FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Canceling credit cards: what is your strategy?
Old Oct 1, 2014, 10:57 am
  #5  
anime333
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
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Originally Posted by nsc168
I have been looking over my credit report from creditkarma.com, in preparation to possibly apply for 2-3 more cards before the end of the year.

The only thing I rate a "C" on (everything else is scored as an "A") is credit history. My average credit history is 5 years.

# of current open cards: 7
Oldest open credit card: 20 years
Newest open credit card: 3 months
Current Creditkarma.com score = 760

Of these cards, I only use two of them to accumulate miles/points. The other ones are:

Card #1: 20 years
Card #2: ~10 years
Card #3: 3 years
Card #4: 2 years
Card #5: 2 years

None of these cards have annual fees. They are free if I want to keep them around. But should I cancel a few of them? (i.e. #4 and #5) to improve my credit score and decrease the # of total cards I have?

What other considerations should I make before I cancel a credit card?

Thanks for your advice!
So benefits and issues with closing cards 3-5:

In about 7-8 years, those cards would drop off your account and your average account age would increase. Of course, you'd have added many other cards at the same time.

If you kept the cards, even as you added more cards to your account, those 5 with constantly, now and forever, be pulling your AAA up.

However, those cards also have credit tied up in them; the more credit access you have, the more banks might question why you need access to more credit, especially if you already have credit with them. I'd consider lowering the credit limits on them if you can. Even then, issuers might ask why you want more cards when you already have x number of cards with them. In short, you lose a churn-spot.

Personally, I'd keep the cards unless you have more than 2 with just one issuer (or at least an issuer you'd like to churn with).
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