I agree. I had a couple of cards and canceled them after some time...
I still got a mortgage/loan approval in a matter of days. I believe the banks/mortgage brokers look at a FICO better than 740, but I am not sure.

I think that there is a lot of misinformation surrounding this topic - probably no one on the outside really knows everything about this. This may largely be due to the ever changing climate of credit - the credit industry has changed dramatically in the last 30 years and likely so has the credit standards.

For years people told me that having a lot of credit cards "looks bad" when trying for a home loan - claiming that all of this credit could be seen as a liability. Nothing could have been further from the truth as I had no trouble whatsoever getting a loan. I have around 8-10 cards, most of which I rarely use. I only pay fees on the SPG Amex. I have AA MC free one year and may convert it to a free 1/$2 card if I decide I do not earn enough on it to make it worth it since I only use it when Amex is not accepted. My credit rating is fine, I have no problems getting any cards that I apply for.

I would say that it is probably not best to open and close accounts quickly just to get the bonuses, it may look bad to do a lot of this though I am not sure. I have opened and closed a couple, but usually I keep them for a year or two. Sometimes I have chosen to change the card to a free 1/$2 card to avoid the fee and still have the card just in case. Of course, if you plan to open it again for a bonus, this route may not be best.

If you are a college student - definately get credit cards while in school as the approval process is easier. Once you are working a job and have no credit cards, it is harder to get them from what I hear. Of course, if you have one in school, do not do what some of my less wise friends did and run up bills that cannot be payed.

About the only thing that I can ascertain 100% that hurts your credit rating every time is to not pay the bills

Just received an offer from Delta offering me 10,000 Skymiles plus a free year of some Amex card at no fee.

I am leery to apply for another Amex card unless I can be re-assured that it is easy to cancel before the second year begins and they try to assess a $85 (yikes!) fee.

I know that in a previous decade, their customer service was notoriously awful, and if they are still unable to follow simple requests or to repair obvious billing errors, then it probably isn't worth giving them another try even to get 10,000 miles.

Opinions? Experiences?

My bad experience with Amex was in the early 1990s, so maybe they have improved...and maybe not?

When I lived in China for a year, I opened a plain vanilla Amex green (charge card) account for its benefit of letting you cash personal checks overseas. I paid the annual fee once, then cancelled it a year later without ever using the card or the check cashing benefit (it was just a backup way to get cash in case other methods failed). I actually forgot to cancel the card before the second annual fee hit. But when I called and they saw that I hadn't used it in the last couple months, they closed the account no problem refunding the 2nd annual fee.

This was in 2001-2002, btw.

I just "canceled" that card after using it for a year. I was billed the $85 fee this January, but when I called to cancel they refunded the fee and begged me to keep the card. Weird because I only used the card to get the 10,000 miles and to charge Costco purchases. But no problem to cancel.

I'm using a Starwood Preferred Guest Platinum AmEx this year. It's ugly (understated?) but works really well. One year free, with $30 the second year I think.

I second this. To cancel the card is no problem. Amexco even prorates and credits/refunds the fee, if the card is canceled after the one-year-free period.