Thank you for your comment. I guess there is no such thing as "too many closed accounts on credit report", and "cluttered" was obviously a wrong word. Thanks again!

A free and very helpful tool for playing "what if" with your credit score, as well as getting periodic updates: www.creditkarma.com

my understanding on this is that anyone can apply for a business card. you just put your name in the place of the business. any application for a business card will show up as a hard hit on your personal credit report as well. i do though understand that the history of a business card on your credit report shows up differently. i don't fully understand how it's different, but i do remember it being good not bad. does anyone have any more info on this???

I agree about misinformation
 

No 1 what is CL's, credit limits? if so raising your CL beyond your annual income creates concerns and will negatively effect your chances of getting credit beyond your income. Credit is based on your ability to pay, card companies will not qualify you for much more credit than you can afford...thats why in order to open 3rd and 4th cards with a single provider some people have to rebalance CL's
No 2 cancelling a credit card can definately hurt your score, if you dont have much credit it raises your utilization and lowers your available credit and if you cancel your longest open card it hurts your score by lowering the length of your open accounts. if you close it yourself, paid on time, and have plenty of other credit it does not have as much effect.
no 3 like i said all three agencies quoted too many open accounts as a negative on my wifes score...your assumption in #5 that these comments are worthless are wrong...they may be made by the servicing company, but they are made to give a reason why the score is not higher than it is...proof is: after we closed my wife's excess accounts her scores increased 20-40 points.

no 4 and 6 are based on the fact that credit scores are not the same as a credit report from the big 3 companies, Fico scores are not the only scoring available, there are others, and you are correct in the fact that only FICO knows how they create their scores...#6 is a link to sites which speculate as to what effects things have on your scores...which as you have said are not published and are a secret calculation, so they provide educated guesses as to what things are positive and negative to your scores. they may be good reading, but are not going to refute anything I have said here

Wise2u I really don’t know where to start. I will point out a mistake that most rookies make. It does not matter if an account is open or closed they both count towards AAoA (average age of accounts). Also it does not matter if you close the account or the creditor closes the account. FICO does not use this in any of their calculations. We are talking about credit scores not the creditor. Don’t confuse the two issues like the other poster did.

If you wanted to know how FF programs work you would come here. If you wanted to know about BT’s I would send you to FW. If you want to know how credit scores work it should be obvious where to go but I guess not.

(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.

yeah, you are totally right on. i wasn't very clear. i was able to transfer the same account # to the new card and that way retain the history. if i had just obtained a different citi card and cancelled my other one i would have had lost all of my history. when in doubt never ever cancel an old card.

When you close an account you do not lose its age until it falls of your report. This usually happens in 7 - 10 years.

+1 to everything you've said in this thread

The amount of misinformation on this site about credit scores is astounding.

That's a very good distinction (credit score vs. credit history). I didn't mean credit history on credit report in my earlier post when I say "card history." I probably should have worded it differently to distinguish the effect of (shorter) lifespan of open accounts on credit score from credit history.

To add on your comment, the average age of one's open accounts plays a role in credit scores. Having a whole bunch of say 1-year-old closed accounts doesn't earn any extra point as far as credit score goes. But for those young accounts closed in say 2005, you still get to see their presence in your current credit report this year.

Are you trying to say that if I opened an account in Jan 2005 and closed it in Jan 2006, then in 2010 it would only factor in as "1 year old" into my credit score? If so, that's wrong, and it's the exact opposite of what QL_714 is trying to tell you.

No, That's not what I meant. I was agreeing with QL_714.

Your above "assumption" was mixing credit report with credit score and a total misunderstanding of my two posts.

What if you have one airline card like the US Mastercard and want a free hotel card like the Best Western Mastercard? Will Barclay's give you 2 Mastercards in different programs? I can't get a business card nor can I get the MC World/Visa Signature type cards.

I really want the AA Citibank with one of the 75k bonuses but they keep turning me down for insufficient credit references. Barclay's gave me a MC Platinum (not the World) and Chase gave me a Priority Club Visa (not signature).

My ultimate goal is to add a couple no fee cards (Best Western Barclay's & Chase Marriott) to boost my credit references and get more free points, then go after the 2 big ones--AA Citibank Visa and SPG Amex, then I will stop applying for cards. For personal reasons, I need to do this as soon as possible without screwing up my credit score which is around 753, never late and oldest card is a 23 year old B of A Visa. I would appreciate any help.

Will Barclay's and Chase let me have a second card with a different partner?

Barclay's have US, want Best Western. I intend to keep both.

Chase have Priority Club, want Marriott. I intend to keep the PC for the annual free night incl in $49 fee but will probably cancel the Marriott before they bill the $30 fee as no free annual night.

I wanted to bring this thread back up for a quick question. I'm trying to determine what is "ok" for number of recent inquiries.

I'm currently at 9 due to credit cards and a few mortgage hunts in the past few years.

What's considered "TOO HIGH", or what do most of you run at on your credit reports? 4? 8? 12? higher?

There are no hard and fast rules. Depends on the creditor's policies. I think it is one of the factors but how much it is weighed depends on how strong your report is in other ways. From reports on forums such as fatwallet and creditboards, some have reported that Citi balks when they see 6 inquiries within the last six months on the report they pull, others have not had that problem. Some have reported that Nordstrom and Penfed balk at more than 4 in the last six months, others report no problem. It's a big YMMV thing.