Last month I was, shall we say, compulsive. I applied for and received both BofA (12.99%) and Chase (20.24%/0% BT - yes, I'll work on them about that) Yesterday in the mail I got BMW preapproved at 10.25% and today I got Fleet at 8.99% preapproved. Currently I have Providian at 16.99%, $7400 limit, Citibank at 9.74%, $7,500 limit and my good old friend Cap One at 12.9%, $2,900 limit. I'm fully planning on dumping Cap1 in August when my annual fee is due as I refuse to pay those ferrets. The average age of my accounts is lousy with Providian being the oldest at 1/2000 and Cap 1 is second at 7/2000. Am I going to kill my score by trading out Cap1 for Fleet? I'm afraid that lenders may try and boost my rates if my score drops too much. What do you think? Does Fleet give decent CL's? Currently, my utilization is 28% but that will drop when Providian posts because I had a lot of business travel on that card.
Fleet isn't all that great of a card to carry. I'd say Fleet is marginally better. I'd hang on to Providian since it is your oldest and they do report the CL whereas Cap 1 does not. Either way, I don't think your rates will go up much if at all.
