I have a couple Citi cards (AA Amex and AA Visa) with annual fees due up soon. I don't really utilize the cards anymore, so I don't think I'll be receiving any kind of fee waiver (although I'll certainly ask retentions about it).

At this point, I'm mostly concerned with the impact the cancellations would have on my credit score. According to my recent credit reports, Citi does not report the credit limit on either card, so canceling wouldn't affect my utilization ratio, and the cards are both about a year old, so I suppose canceling would actually raise the "average age of accounts" (I'm not clear on this point, does the "average age" take into account only open accounts or does it count both open and closed accounts)?

I'm just wondering if it's worth it to roll one or both of these cards into a no annual fee version, for the following reasons: To maintain a relationship with Citi, to keep a credit line with them that I could transfer in the event of a future card application, and perhaps to convince them to report the limit on this card to lower my utilization ratio (which is in the single digits at the moment).

Any thoughts or previous experiences with this?

Citi is usually very generous with retention bonuses. At the least you should be able to get your annual fee back in return for using the card a few times. I would try this first before asking at about a no-fee card (which they did offer a couple years ago).