I did plenty of searching about this, and found lots of close answers, but not with my exact situation.

Basically, I've found it VERY difficult to pass up credit card accounts that have offered $250 sign up bonus or great new rewards (5-6% Cash Back). As a result, I'm constantly updating my credit card portfolio, and I'm torn at what to do with the old cards that I no longer use. Maybe some people that regularly do the App-O-Rama could add in some advice.

To start, I have 12 Citi cards (I heard someone say Citi limited it to 3, NOT TRUE ) Of those 12, I'm regularly using 4. I'm cycling $1000's of dollars through them each month, and paying off the full balance several times per month, to free up the credit and keep the debt ratio low.

I have 18 credit card accounts open right now, with various lengths (most from the last 2 years, when my obsession with rewards began). Of those 18, I regularly use 8 right now for various purposes. For example, I use 1 to get 6% CashBack on gas, one for 5% CashBack on restaurants, one for fast food & pizza, 3 for store discounts, one for 5% back on groceries, department stores, etc.

Basically, I only use credit cards for rewards and ease of use (who wants to mess around with cash or change anymore?); I'd never EVER use a credit card if I didn't have the money to pay it off in full.

With that in mind, I've been scared to close any of the accounts, as the general response seems to be: once you open credit cards, that damage has been done, and closing any will only hurt your credit history in the short & long term. This conflicts an article I read that warns to limit credit card accounts to no more than 5, with 1 or 2 store cards max.

So, what should I do with my 10 stagnant cards, with no balances and various limits? Second, I still plan to jump on more attractive credit cards in the future; is this a horrible thing to do? If you all tell me to keep the cards open, lets say I hypothetically had over 100 cards in the future...would I have horrible credit as a result?

Any help would be appreciated...I don't really care about a temporary hit in credit score from closing accounts if it goes back to normal in the long run. If I were to cancel cards, would it be best to close 10 in the same day, or to close 1 every few months? Any help would be greatly appreciated in what to do. I resell alot of items that I buy, so I'm cycling a TON of money through CC's, if this helps understand why I'm able to spend so much.

Just make sure that you get all the future ones from BoA and they will close them for you, without warning.

There are many threads on this same thing, what to do with the cards that are laying around.

Conventional wisdom here is to keep the cards open unless there is an annual fee. It is based in theory and not fact. I close all my unused cards with no measurable affect on my score. Go ahead and close them, don’t worry about it.

Before I discovered FW, I used to open and close credit cards all the time so I could re-take advantage of special signup bonuses and other offers. I did this constantly, and with Citi in particular, I closed and reopened many of the same cards over and over and over again. I never had any adverse effects on my credit report - at least not to the point where I couldn't get any type of credit whenever I wanted. I didn't even know about inquiries. My scores were always 760-780 across the board.

Well, reading a lot here on FW about this topic has made me slow down this practice. Perhaps I'm being brainwashed with all the repeated advice on keeping non-used credit cards open. I also read how so many FWF's suddenly get all their credit cards closed without notice even though they have high credit ratings and are long time and loyal customers. This is making me stay under the radar and not be so playful.

Last I checked, my credit score was 733-759. How it got lower I don't know, and this is after I've stopped opening and closing cards raking in so many bonuses. Perhaps there are some basic guidlines to follow, but other than that, I guess anything can happen in this game.

ddeeaallzz said:I'm cycling $1000's of dollars through them each month,

YOU need to save more and stop spending so much to get rewards.

Stop spending so much. We're in a recession here!

I think the hit isn't right when you close the card; it comes in 7 years when the closed cards drop off your report. Make sure you don't keep closing cards till you only have these 5 month old cards in your report in 7 years time!

OP was not really stating that they are spending too much $, since on some of the cards they try to get the rewards and resell the stuff. It almost sounds like a business and help for the economy.

CoffeeEater said:Stop spending so much. We're in a recession here!

Rorer714 said:Conventional wisdom here is to keep the cards open unless there is an annual fee. It is based in theory and not fact. I close all my unused cards with no measurable affect on my score. Go ahead and close them, don’t worry about it.

From here on myFICO.com (owned by Fair Issaic, as in company that makes the FICO score).


Don't close unused credit cards as a short-term strategy to raise your score.


Note that closing an account doesn't make it go away.
A closed account will still show up on your credit report, and may be considered by the score.

Average account age and oldest accounts are part of your FICO score. So you want to keep several of your oldest accounts open. If you close them they'll still be on your report for years, but eventually they'll drop off. If you want a 20 or 30 year history and a 10+ year average account age you'd better not close your oldest accounts.

So as long as you keep a good portion of your oldest account open you'll be fine. Also, when closing accounts be sure to consolodate the credit limit to another card with that issuer.

ddeeaallzz said:chocula said:If I was to consolidate my unused Citi cards to the ones I use, does that get rid of them altogether without giving a hit to my credit history? If so, this looks like an excellent solution?

It's my understanding that consolidation would NOT get rid of your closed Citi cards altogether. They would remain on your credit report for the next seven years, and the status would say: "closed at consumer's request". It will likely not have a major impact on your credit score. What you really want to avoid is losing the available credit in any of the accounts you close, thus the earlier advice to consolidate prior to closing.