When to close cards

[nikkiu]

Hi All,

Using the advice on this board, I've been able to get myself out of debt and rebuild my credit. Back in November of 2005, my credit scores were in the 550-580 area and I had about 26,000 of debt plus 5 credit cards. Of these cards, 3 were from capital one with credit limits of $500-800. I also have a credit card from Household with a CL of $500 (for some reason, Household reduced this to $305) and 1 from BofA with a CL of about $500.

Fast forward about a year and debts have been paid off. In that time, I also bought a condo and have been saving money like crazy. I decided to try my luck with Amex Starwood and they approved me with a $2000 CL (woohoo!). I also got an Amex Hilton card, Citibank card, and citibank business credit card. In the past 6 months, I've raised my credit limits to 25K on Amex Starwood, 30K on Amex Hilton, 15K citibank personal, and 19K citibank business.

Just to explain my requests for an increase in CL, I travel for work every week and expenses can be about 1500 per week. By getting a higher CL, this helps me keep utilization under 20% and I pay off each card every month.

Now that you know the history...

I would like to close the old accounts with Cap1 and Household because I don't use them at all. They have the longer history, but as you know those cards come with a higher annual fee.

When is a good time to close them? Should I wait another year?

[nikkiu]

One year without a reply - anyway, I closed my CapOne accounts today. Household decided to close my account for me - I guess since I was not using the card and they were not earning 29% interest, I was no good to them .

[fatherof3]

Nice job. I would have closed them both as soon as I did not need them anymore. I have read somewhere on here not to close the old accounts to fast as it will have an impact on your score.

[LeslieR]

Excellent! Not sure why you didn't get any replies to your op and I'm sorry you didn't. Hope you weren't paying too much for those cards, because I would have canceled them back then. Congratulations on your successes.

Now stick around and impart some of your experiences to inspire the newbies around here!

[nikkiu]

Thanks, you two. I definitely would spend some time here to help others as I've been helped here. Funny thing was I had to call Cap1 3 times to cancel the cards; each time, they would try to convince me to stay and only cancel one card. They also offered to waive the fee, I said NO. You either switch me to a card with NO annual fees or cancel the card. And then it was this endless story about the need to keep a card opened. No thanks, Ma'am. Close the account right now!