Originally Posted by
sdsearch
Inquiries drop off after a certain number of months, and one is hardly ever a problem. (The one a month that us Citi churners do dwarfs the one in a couple years that the OP seems to be faced wtih here.)
Meanwhile, the additional account will also only appear momentarily (if at all), if the OP consolidates once the new card is open. (I say "if at all" because banks tend to report to credit bureaus only once a month, and so it's theoretically possible to open a new card and get it consolidated with an old card's history both between reporting cycles! Although trying to time that would be tricky, so I would presume at least one month showing both cards...)
I agree that a single inquiry isn't a big deal. I don't agree that the additional account will disappear or not appear at all. In my experience of consolidating cards over the past few years, the old accounts do stay on my credit report, but are simply noted as "Closed by Account Holder" or something to that respect. For example, if I had 2 Citi accounts and consolidated the newer one, both account would still appear on a credit report. At least they do for me.
Still, having an additional closed account on your credit report won't hurt too bad, but some people are more sensitive to this than others. If you had poor credit to begin with, you wouldn't want to have the additional inquiry or recently opened (and closed) account.