Originally Posted by sdsearch

Your credit gets dinged primarily if you close older accounts. It's always better to close new accounts than old ones. But what's even better is consolidating (if you have a old account at the same place where you have the new account, you may be able to combione the credit histories yet end up with one less card).

But you're doing all this just for 1% cashback??? (That's all I've ever heard of TY points being good for.) The only kinds of points that tend to get you much more than 1% cashback are real airline miles and real hotel points (because those two systems at most airlines and most hotel chains don't have a redemption value that's proportional to the cash value of the reward, while all "fake miles/points" like TY points, Capital One, etc, simply use your points at about a 1% cashback rate to buy cash tickets outright (through their travel agency). So you get no more back than with a simple 1% cashback card (and then using the cashback savings to book the flight or hotel yourself), but you have restrictions on redeeming!