'd like to know other's experience, too

I've been able to do it with accounts <2 years old, but not >2 years. Would be curious to hear any success stories going back further than that...

Sounds like one phone call will give you your answer. Share your results when you find out.

loserguy said:I seem to recall that my wife did this once, called up and reactivated a Chase card after it had been closed about a year. Has anyone done this as a way to lengthen your credit history? Obviously I'm talking about reopening a card from 3-5 years ago (I accidently closed all of my older ones

Structure/Express - Closed in 2001 reopened 10/18/2004 (3 years!!)

Chase - Closed Dec. 2003, SS no longer in system.
Discover - Must be less than 90 Days.
Sears - Less than two months.


I was actually going to start this topic as well since I also, pre-fatwallette, closed all my old CC accounts. Thankfully, my express account is actually from 1997, so that will be a big boost since my other oldest card was 2003!

veryhungry said:I have successfully done this with a citibank student card.

at that time it was owned by associates.

reopened 3 years later, new hard on my CR, same acct number and open date, and CLI increase.

I am going to call Citi and see if they will re-open mine as an AT&T Universal with 5% back on everything! Thanks

discover refused

8-9 months i think.

loserguy said:HappyGuy said:Sounds like one phone call will give you your answer. Share your results when you find out.

loserguy said:I seem to recall that my wife did this once, called up and reactivated a Chase card after it had been closed about a year. Has anyone done this as a way to lengthen your credit history? Obviously I'm talking about reopening a card from 3-5 years ago (I accidently closed all of my older ones

HappyGuy: How can one phone call tell me if I can re-open 12 of my closed credit cards?? Please advise who I would call.

LoserGuy: Re-read your OP, when you wrote "I'm talking about reopening a card" I thought it was clear you meant "one" card and in that case you would call the card issuer. I was not trying to be rude.

Also, if there is a consensus on issuers standards for reopening closed accounts or your find out more info from talking to your card issuers, it would be very useful to the forum if you could edit your original post with the updated information.

DaveHanson said:I've been able to do it with accounts <2 years old, but not >2 years. Would be curious to hear any success stories going back further than that...

Care to give us newbies some tips ? I would love to reinstate my Household bank card just for its long credit history, they shut me out for not using the card much. Learnt my lesson, i use most of my 43 (or is it 44?) cards every couple of months. Kinda hard with ccs like BestBuy & HPShopping. Its becoming a PIA though, probably will consolidate a bunch of em.

Cheers

I tried to re-open cards closed more than 2 years back with Chase, Citi, and BofA but none of them could find it in their systems