I refinanced my home and pulled out some of the equity to pay off my credit cards. There are still some balances but it dropped my overall utilization from pretty much maxed out to about 22% overall and saving about $900 a month in the minimum payment hamster wheel. I've had 2 cards (ones that I chose not to PIF with the equity) hit me with annual fees.
I know there are mixed feelings about closing accounts but I just assumed I would close the ones with annual fees as soon as they hit and leave the others open to help with utilization. The two that I'm considering closing are:
BOA platinum card, started out as a $300 secured and now has a $1500 limit with 14% int and $29 fee, 8 years old
BB Reward Zone, started out at $250 then went to $1000 but they dropped my limit to $720 when I had credit problems a few years back. $59 fee 10 years old
I'm having issues because my AAoA is only about 3.7 years and I've heard its wrong to mess with that. On the plus side it drops my overall utilization to about 19% because these cards are maxed. I can pay them off and close within the week if its recommended.
Starting Score: EQ 500 TU 500 EX 500 
Thats good to know about the AAoA, its just that these are some of my oldest cards so I'm hesitant. And as to the utilization thing, I was looking at the wrong column. After these close I will be at 19% overall. The BOA is unsecured and has been after the first 6 months.
If you pay an annual fee and don't use the card, you pretty much answered the question. When it comes to stuff like this I think its best to be realistic. No reason to keep for AAoA as the info stays on your report for 10 years (so I've heard!) My personal feeling (and experience) is that you should get rid of cards that no longer work for you. I'm a pretty big adovocate of low as possible exposure to any one source, so while I don't keep a lot of cards, I've progressivly went to better cards as my scores allowed.
Just called today and closed my CapOne Venture One. It was the oldest card in the stack but I just didn't care, its doing nothing in my wallet except taking up space. Besides that, no CLI since like forever and NFCU replaced it with a much higher limit and lower rate.
You'll probably get a lot of different opinions, but ultimately, do the very best for your situation 
@Chickenpotpie wrote:If you pay an annual fee and don't use the card, you pretty much answered the question. When it comes to stuff like this I think its best to be realistic. No reason to keep for AAoA as the info stays on your report for 10 years (so I've heard!) My personal feeling (and experience) is that you should get rid of cards that no longer work for you. I'm a pretty big adovocate of low as possible exposure to any one source, so while I don't keep a lot of cards, I've progressivly went to better cards as my scores allowed.
Just called today and closed my CapOne Venture One. It was the oldest card in the stack but I just didn't care, its doing nothing in my wallet except taking up space. Besides that, no CLI since like forever and NFCU replaced it with a much higher limit and lower rate.
You'll probably get a lot of different opinions, but ultimately, do the very best for your situation
Right, the problem is that people don't know how to value a credit score, especially 10 years down the road, when a totally different system may be in place. In contrast, paying out $88 in AF for nothing is real money (albeit a fairly small amount). So like others, I would just close them now
Have you asked BoA for a product change to a card without an annual fee? I was able to change from a card with no rewards opened back in 2003 to the CashRewards card without any hassle.
NFCU Flagship $32K | NFCU Cashrewards $42K | Discover IT $39K | SECU Visa $20K | Chase SW $24k | CSR $15K | Chase Bonvoy $11.5K | Chase Freedom $11.5K | Chase Amazon Visa 8.5K | AMEX Bonvoy $18.1K | AMEX Hilton Surpass $15K | AMEX Hilton Aspire $24.4K | AMEX Gold | Aviator Red $16K | Uber Visa 10k | Citi TY Premier $24.6K | BoA Premium Rewards 35k | BoA Cash Rewards Visa $31.5k | BoA Cash Rewards MC $23k | US Bank Cash+ $10k | USAA AMEX $6K | Cap1QS $11K | BJs MC $27.6K | Walmart MC $5.1K | Loft MC $25,000 | Macy’s Store/Amex $20K/$1K | BR Visa $10K | JCP $1K | VS $3.2K | Home Depot $5K | Lowes $8.5K | Target $14.5k
I called BOA today and the rep I talked to said she was submitting a request to refund my annual fee or product change to a card that has no fee, said it could take 3 days to respond. I also called citi and closed the Best Buy account. I half expected them to offer to refund the fee to keep the account but no dice. He asked if I had considered the impact to my credit file and I said yes. Then he wanted to confirm the only reason I was closing the account was the fee and I said yes. Then he put me on hold for about 5 minutes. When he came back said the fee had been reversed and my account was closed.