Originally Posted by
flightmedic
I would get the new card, make the spend, get the bonus miles, and then cancel the new card. Your credit history is partially based on how long you have had specific credit cards. Why throw out a 2 year history when you can instead simply cancel the new card. The only reason I could see to cancel the old one is if the annual fee is due and you can't get it waived.
I've never been a big fan of closing accounts shortly after opening them. For anyone manually reviewing your credit report (e.g. recon), it doesn't look good at all. I'd recommend applying for the new card, and then converting the old one to something with no AF (like the double cash). Each person in my family has been through over a dozen Citi AA cards, but we all converted either the first or second one we had open to a no AF card like this. It keeps the relationship with Citi open at all times, and looks good when they're checking to see how long you've been with them. It also doesn't hurt your credit score.
Originally Posted by
RobertHanson
This is an urban myth that will not die. Once opened, all accounts stay on your credit report
as though still open for 10 years. I've cancelled more ccs than I can count, some at the AF. Some like the AA EXEC within 2 months of being approved, which I did over and over. My true FICO runs from 770 to 830, depending on which CB is reporting.
The reason it won't die is because so many FAKO scores use Average Age of Open Accounts instead of Average Age of Accounts. While I can see the usefulness of AAoOA, the truth is, as you said, that FICO uses AAoA.
The only thing I might disagree with is the part of your statement I put in
italics bold. The closed accounts definitely show up on your credit report as closed. I can't say with 100% certainty whether they have the same impact as open accounts, but there's definitely a difference in how they're represented.
I've had a few accounts that I had to close soon after opening (like the AA Execs), and it's always made me a little uncomfortable. This could just be my personal level of risk aversion vs. other peoples', but it's got to be something of a black mark on your record when a CSR sees it. And they will see it - for anyone who's had enough Citi cards that you never get approved without calling recon and being on hold for 15 minutes, there's a reason for that. What they're doing is manually going through all of your past Citi accounts and entering them into their system. Why? Who knows, it's Citi. But they are looking at each one of them on some level, which includes at least dates and credit lines.