Originally Posted by
koctail
... i will make one caveat to this though and that being you can cancel that oldest card as long as u replace it with a card from the same bank. my first cc card was a citi card. i called to cancel it and the csr advised me doing so could hurt my credit and she talked me into a citi dividend card and advised that way i would still continue to have the long history with Citi show up on my credit report.
(emphasis mine)
It is a hasty conclusion and, unfortunately, a not so completely accurate one. There are so many factors to consider.
It just so happened that Citi was able to transfer your previous account to another account type (Citi Divident) that allowed you to retain previous history and credit line from Citi. That doesn't mean Citi (or any other bank) will be able to perform the same for transfers between other accounts from the same banks. Generally speaking, you lose the CL and history when closing CC with the bank, unless the bank offers a product to retain you and the card history.