Yes, for several reasons.
1) If you charge a lot to your card, you may be able to convince the CS people that you deserve an "anniversary" or non-cancellation bonus. Alaska Air's card offers everyone a small anniversary bonus.

2) Your credit score can be negatively affected by two factors related to opening and closing credit:
a) The length of time your accounts have been established. Average consumer's oldest account is 14-15 years. Average consumer's most recent account is 20 months. Longer is better.
b) The number of requests for credit in the last 12 months. Fewer is better.

ALthough lenders will look first at factors such as bankruptcy or delinquincy, these numbers could still have an impact.

I've been playing the rotating credit game the past 18 months. I thought it wouldn't matter, as I found it highly unlikely we'd be able to take advantage of a home refinance. Then, rates dropped low enough that we are currently going through the process.

I won't play the rotating credit card game again. Although my credit scores are still very solid, they very nearly affected our loan rate and/or points paid. A couple of hundred dollars worth of miles isn't worth 30 years of extra payments.

[Edited for grammatical and typographical errors]

[This message has been edited by CutStyle (edited 08-16-2002).]