Advice on combining 3 Chase cards??

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I have the following credit cards open and I am seeking advice as to what my best course of option is in bumping but my average credit limit, as they are all very low:

CapOne - 2004 - $1,500 with a $5 monthly fee...pondering closing based on principle alone..

Target Visa - 2004 - $1,000

GECRB-Dillards - 2005 - $100 [seriously....]

GECRB-AE - 2005 - $400

Discover - 2005 - $2,000 [just auto CLI from $1,000, first ever CLI lol]

Chase Amazon - 2005 - $1,500

Chase Wamu Visa - 2008 - $1,000
GECRB-Care Credit - 2011 - $3,000

Chase Freedom - 2012 - $1,000

AMEX Hilton Honors - 2012 - $1,000 [and refuses to raise limit even though im 61 days+]

Total of limits - $12,500 spread across 10 cards.  My line of thinking is that if i reduce the number of cards and increase the average limit, I will be able to get AMEX to open up to CLIs, as it is my primary payment method.  I have $400 on Discover and $400 on Capital one, rest are zero balance.  My EqFICO is currently 711; the highest it has ever been, so I want to be very careful about making any changes which will bring it down.

Would consolidating my 3 Chase cards in to the oldest line from 2005 for a $3,500 limit and closing the measley $100 Dillards card likely lead to a drop in my credit score, or would the increase to average limits be a worthwhile tradeoff?  Any advice is appreciated....

[MovingForward_2012]

Bump

[slippy84]

I believe that when you're closing accounts and combining credit limits with Chase, they make you leave $500 on the closed account and will let you transfer the rest, which would mean you could only combine limits to reach $2500. Someone can probably clarify that point.

Have you tried taking good care of the cards you already have? What I mean is that you should try optimizing your score by selectively paying off balances before they report to the credit bureaus on some cards but leaving a balance in the 1-9% range on other cards. If you don't have a credit karma account, then that is a free tool you can use to figure all this stuff out.

This is what I mean by optimization of your cards. So for you, you've got 10 cards. You've only got 2 reporting balances right now but one is at 20% util and the other is at 27% util. Your overall util is still low, but to boost your score, you should spread out the balance to multiple cards, keeping each below 9%. It is best to have less than half of your cards report a balance each month.

Also, you need to make sure that you are letting each card report a balance every few months (let's say every 3-4 months). If a card is always reporting a $0 balance each month long term, then FICO starts to exclude that tradeline from their analysis which can hurt your score. So that means you need to rotate which card is reporting each month.

Here's an example:

Month one: you let 4 of your cards report a balance in the 1-9% util range. You pay off the others before they report so they report as a $0 balance.

Month two: you do the same thing, but with 3 different cards.

Month three: once again, do the same thing, but with the last 3 of your cards

Month 4: rinse and repeat

Keep in mind that you can still use all 10 cards every month if you want to. You just need to keep track of when each one reports to the bureaus and pay them off before they report.

If you're obessessive about this, you can milk a few more points out of your score. I think that this would be a good approach to try before closing accounts (especially accounts that are otherwise free). As your scores rise, I think that lenders will start rewarding you with more of those CLIs.

Anyway, that's my $0.02. Check out the "Understanding FICO Scoring" section (http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/bd-p/ficoscoring) and read a bunch of those threads for more info on what helps and hurts your score

[ryanbush]

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@slippy84 wrote:

I believe that when you're closing accounts and combining credit limits with Chase, they make you leave $500 on the closed account and will let you transfer the rest, which would mean you could only combine limits to reach $2500. Someone can probably clarify that point.

Have you tried taking good care of the cards you already have? What I mean is that you should try optimizing your score by selectively paying off balances before they report to the credit bureaus on some cards but leaving a balance in the 1-9% range on other cards. If you don't have a credit karma account, then that is a free tool you can use to figure all this stuff out.

This is what I mean by optimization of your cards. So for you, you've got 10 cards. You've only got 2 reporting balances right now but one is at 20% util and the other is at 27% util. Your overall util is still low, but to boost your score, you should spread out the balance to multiple cards, keeping each below 9%. It is best to have less than half of your cards report a balance each month.

Also, you need to make sure that you are letting each card report a balance every few months (let's say every 3-4 months). If a card is always reporting a $0 balance each month long term, then FICO starts to exclude that tradeline from their analysis which can hurt your score. So that means you need to rotate which card is reporting each month.

Here's an example:

Month one: you let 4 of your cards report a balance in the 1-9% util range. You pay off the others before they report so they report as a $0 balance.

Month two: you do the same thing, but with 3 different cards.

Month three: once again, do the same thing, but with the last 3 of your cards

Month 4: rinse and repeat

Keep in mind that you can still use all 10 cards every month if you want to. You just need to keep track of when each one reports to the bureaus and pay them off before they report.

If you're obessessive about this, you can milk a few more points out of your score. I think that this would be a good approach to try before closing accounts (especially accounts that are otherwise free). As your scores rise, I think that lenders will start rewarding you with more of those CLIs.

Anyway, that's my $0.02. Check out the "Understanding FICO Scoring" section (http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/bd-p/ficoscoring) and read a bunch of those threads for more info on what helps and hurts your score

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keep in mind the number of accounts with a balance negatively affects your score, so the more accounts with a balance you have the lower your score goes.  it's different for everyone so you'll have to play with it to find the right number of accounts for your profile.

[youngandcreditwrthy]

I'd call GE Credit Solutions about all of your GE accts and request clis. That's the easiest and most effective way to increase your CLs!

[ryanbush]

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@youngandcreditwrthy wrote:
I'd call GE Credit Solutions about all of your GE accts and request clis. That's the easiest and most effective way to increase your CLs!

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youve got a good point, they're great about that