Avoiding account closure and credit limit reduction

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I recently paid off  the balances on a Mastercard (Chase), VISA (BOA) and my AMEX Gold.  I have a Discover that I haven't used for the past two years. I also have another VISA and AMEX Blue that each have balances that I'm now working on.

I realize it's important to keep the four accounts with zero balances open in order to maintain my credit score. My question is (probably unanswerable!), now that the balances are zero, in the current climate, how likely are the companies to reduce my credit limits? I've read that this seems to be something that companies are now doing arbitrarily even with long standing customers who have never missed a payment .  Surprisingly, even though I haven't used the Discover card for two years, they have not reduced it - so far!

Is there any way to stop becoming a victim of this practice and since I'm keeping the accounts open, are the companies looking for a minimum amount of activity before they flag the account as not being used?

Thanks!

[marty56]

You can use each card say every other month and rotate them and PIF.   Keep in mind that being CC debt free makes you immune, FICO score wise, from AA.

[haulingthescoreup]

I wouldn't worry about them CLD'ing or closing you, unless you were on thin ice with them for a long while (high balance, minimum payments, etc.)

If you're really worried, you can assign one recurring monthly charge to each card (cell phone, land line, cable, utilities, rent, charitable donation/ tithe/ etc.) That way, they will always be in use. Just don't forget to pay off the monthly charges.

And then, of course, you can occasionally use them for other things like big-ticket purchases, gas, etc. See which rewards come with each card --you can wind up making some money off of them with a little planning.