Hello fellow creditnetters. Right now, I have quite a few credit cards and would like to cancel some of them out. I would appreciate any advice from you guys as to which ones I should get rid of. Thanks. I'll list all the info below. 1. Credit Union Visa (First Card Opened), $500 limit, Opened 07/2000, $500 Limit (Toy Card George, LOL), 11.89% Fixed APR 2. Chase StockBack Platinum (soon to be perfectcard), $7300 limit, Opened 07/2001, 5.99% Variable APR 3. Sears Gold Mastercard, $11,700 Limit, 17.15% Variable APR (never carry balance on this!), Opened 06/2002 4. American Eagle Charge Card, $300 Limit, Opened 07/2003, 19.8% Fixed Apr 5. Bank of America Platinum Visa, $8600 limit, Opened 07/2003, 12.9% Fixed APR 6.Target Visa, $6900 limit, Opened 10/2001, 9.9% Fixed APR 7. US Bank Visa Classic, $3000 limit, Opened 11/2003, 0% Intro 6 months, then 11.99% 8. US Bank WorldPerks Visa Platinum, $4000 limit, Opened 12/2003, 13.75% APR, $55 Annual Fee (I fly Northwest a lot, was thinking of using this one for all charges to get worldperks miles) 9.Discover Platinum, 2.9% till July 04, then 12.99% Variable, $6500 limit, Opened 01/2002 10. Discover Gold, 0% till Dec 04', then 13.99% Variable, $5000 limit, Opened 11/2003 11. Citibank Diamond Preferred, Carrying balance at 3.99% till paid in full, otherwise 8.24% Variable, $15,000 line, Opened 01/2003 12. Fleet Platinum, $1500 limit, Opened 08/2003, 12.99% Fixed APR 13. MBNA World Mastercard, $14,400 limit, Opened 05/2002, 8.99% Fixed APR 14. MBNA AOPA Visa Platinum, $2500 limit, 11.99% Fixed APR (can use this for my flight stuff at the FBO and get a 5% statement credit, u think it's worth it?) 15. Bank One Visa Platinum, $8500 limit, 7.65% Variable APR, Opened 08/2003 I know I have a lot of recently opened accounts, so this is probably hurting. I have a lot of accounts and simply realize I don't need them, so I would love to get some help in weeding them out, but I don't want to have too few because of credit balance to limit ratios, etc. I have about 10,000 in credit card debt to give you an idea. I am paying about $500 a month towards the debt, which is spread between the Citibank Card ($7000) and the MBNA World Card ($8000, on a promo 2.9% for 6 months from this month). Any help is appreciated greatly! Thanks again guys!!!
Unless there are annual fees, I don't understand the need to get rid of any of these cards. If you don't use 'em, fine. They're all relatively new, so let the history roll on together. It's hard to follow your utilization - you say you've got $10k balance but then $7k on one card and $8k on another adds up to $15k. Sounds like you've got the BT thing down, but I don't see any reason to get rid of any cards. Just by holding on to them the CLs will increase and your utilization will drop naturally.
"IF" you want to DOWN SIZE...start with the "TOY" card first... I'm DOWN SIZING BECAUSE I HAVE MULTIPLE CARDS WITH THE SAME BANK...(AND ALL THE MERGERS) I made HIS & HERS BofA into ONE "JOINT" I have 3 BANK ONE...(I'M SCARRED WHAT IS GONNA' HAPPEN WITH THAT WHEN CHASE COMES INTO THE PICTURE) FLEET WILL BE BofA... BANK ONE WILL BE CHASE... AMEX STARWOOD INTO AMEX HILTON--MINE...SHE DID THE SAME... AMEX STARWOOD WAS ALMOST A "TOY" CARD!!!
SOCKDRAWER THEM... Use them 2 or 3 times a year..."IF" you won't use them at all and they are too low of a CL close them...
Matty WOW! Youâ??re able to get all of these cards in 3 years? I see your oldest TL is from 2000. What is your score/annual wage? Hope one day Iâ??ll be at least close to your number of cards Any advise to us that don't have that many cards? Denny
Re: Re: Too Many Credit Cards, advice guys Thanks so much guys. That helps. I think I will just sockdrawer em. I like the Worldperks Visa myself. Do you think it is ok for the annual fee? I do fly a lot with friends, etc for trips and whatnot. Also, yes I typed in the wrong number for the balance on MBNA, it's 3K, not 7K, sorry. I was just worried that creditors would see so many open accounts and reprice me. Just hope that doesn't happen. I've never missed a payment on any of them. I also have my auto loan which is a year old in May that I got myself and student loans, which I have begun to pay down (would like to be debt free by graduation). Thanks again to all for your advice, I can always count on all of ya!
Re: Re: Too Many Credit Cards, advice guys what is the annual fee? how much will you spend on it in a year, that will be the deciding factor at to whether it will be worth the annual fee or not? I have been trying to decide the same with my Citi AAdvantage card with a 50$ annual fee, would take me 2 years to charge enough to get a free ticket though, I think I would value this more than a little cash at the end of each year, but am still trying to decide. Maybe someone can offer us both some insight?
Re: Re: Too Many Credit Cards, advice guys matty61184, If you want your FICO score to get better I can help you with this. On one account you are missing the open date on that account, if you could post the open date on that account I could help you better in the second round. DO NOT close the Credit Union Visa with the $500 limit. Your 7/2000 open date would really chop into the average age of revolving accounts. The FICO points would take a good dive if you closed that account. I understand that you do not want to close some accounts because of the CL to balance issue. I would chop these two first. American Eagle Charge Card $300 7/2003. And Fleet Platinum $1500 8/2003. Your credit line to balances wouldn't really be affected and your average age of revolving accounts would be in your FICO favor. Also DO NOT carry balances on more than 4 credit cards at one time if you want to get your best FICO score. I would hold back from opening up any more credit cards for at least 2 years at this point. The inquirys hurt for a year and every time you open an account your average age of revolving accounts will go down. Usually in most cases once you open an account that is not needed the damage is already done and closing it will not have much of a positive impact on your FICO score. But in cases such as this you should probably trim a few to get the age of revolving accounts in your favor. If I were you I would trim down to 9 accounts if you can at this point. Please post the date that you opened the account that is not listed and I will do the FICO math for you if you are not real familiar with how it works in the big picture. Once again close Fleet Platinum and American Eagle Charge as soon as you can and I will help you with the 2nd round.
Re: Re: Re: Too Many Credit Cards, advice guys J.Vick, I found the Card that I forgot to list the opening date. On the MBNA AOPA Visa, I opened it just this month because I was starting flight school. Btw, I really REALLY appreciate what you are doing to help me out! You get an award!!! hehe. I will take your advice about inquiries. Thanks to "B", I have two Inq on EQ, five on TU, and (acky) 10 on EXP. However, two will fall of EXP here in March. Hope that helps. Also, you can email me at matty61184@mchsi.com if you would like. Thanks a lot! Btw, I closed both of those accounts.
Re: Re: Re: Too Many Credit Cards, advice guys Hey Butch! Long time no chatty, haha. I've been pretty busy with working, full time in college, and working on my private pilot's license. I still manage to drop by and read through the posts every now and then though. ;-) Good to hear from ya!
Re: Re: Re: Too Many Credit Cards, advice guys i've never closed any except some dumb household accounts. my score has always gone up when adding a new $10K line due to debt ratio. Having $250K in lines does indeed make any amount of debt seem "low" lol.
