Hi Guys, It has been a long time since I posted. Guess what? I finally made prime. Yeah! : ) I got card from Bank of America Gold and Direct Merchants Platinum. I also got Blue Amex for Business. Anyway, I have been in my new home for almost a year now. It is great. The question: I have an Orchard card with an annual fee on it. I just called and they said they don't negotiate that fee. Has anyone here ever upgraded their account to Gold without no annual fee? Maybe I said the wrong words to customer service. Do I need to tell them that I would like a review of my account to upgrade it to Gold? I just asked about dropping the annual fees. I mean, I have enough credit cards. This is the only one that carries a fee. Even Providian dropped my annual fee and upgraded me to Platinum with lower interest rates. Also if they don't agree to upgrade should I drop the card? I don't want to hurt my credit score. I have had the card for two years. Providian I have had for three years. The others just a few months. You guys are great. You really helped me reach my goals. Thank you for your advice in advance. Have a great weekend. And Happy Father's Day to all you Fathers. Bunni
I had Orchard gold and classic cards. The APR and annual fees were the same on both. The only difference is that the gold has benefits such as auto rental insurance. I tried to combine the accounts and they refused. When my FICO reached 680+, I tried to get a permanent waiver of the annual fee and couldn't get one. They refused to lower the APR below 15.9 despite a 7 year history with no payment even one day late. I didn't want to get rid of the cards either but once I had established prime accounts, I decided not to stay with Orchard despite the long account history. For one thing, I didn't want to pay an annual fee when the cards offered no rewards nor did I want to remember to call them every year to get it waived. I don't think the score impact was all that great when I closed them. It may actually help to thin out the number of accounts you have so that when you apply for new credit, you won't be denied for having too many open accounts. Might as well do business with companies that are going to offer you competitive rates once you've gotten past the bad credit or no credit problem.
