I know generallly speaking closing credit card accounts drops your credit score, but I may be in a position to actually get a bump in my score and wanted to run my thoughts by the board first.
About 15 months ago I closed on my first house, and I had been extremely careful with my spending, utilization, and inquiries in the year leading up to closing to be sure there were no hiccups. As soon as I closed on my place, I did a mini app spree and was able to get the Chase Southwest Platinum card (limit $10k), Chase Slate (limit $7500), and Chase Freedom (limit $7500) basically all on the same day. I also not too long after this mini spree app'd for the Costco American Express in store, and I was approved for $10.6k. Although it helped my score to get a much higher available credit limit (before the app spree I only had three credit cards with a combined limit of $9k), it definitely skewed my AAoA to show my average credit history was "shorter" than it was before.
My oldest credit card is just over 12 years old, and my average age of accounts is 7 years 2 months. My 3 Chase cards and my Amex are the only recent credit cards I've opened, and now that the promotional 0% interest is expiring on the Chase Slate and Chase Freedom cards I'm thinking of consolidating the credit lines into my Chase Southwest card and closing the Slate/Freedom. The Slate is basically a balance transfer card with a high APR of 22.9% after the intro period which I have no use for, and the Freedom card while having some benefits also carries a 22.9% APR after the intro period. I use the Southwest card heavily as I like the points for traveling, and it has a lower APR at 14.9% I believe. I should mention that the Slate has a zero balance, and the Freedom will have a zero balance before I do any consolidation. I figure that by closing the Slate and Freedom and transferring the credit line over to the Southwest card my AAoA will actually go up/improve since I'm getting rid of two newer cards, but my overall available credit will not change which should in theory improve my credit score. Am I missing something? I don't want it to look like I gamed the system so to speak to Chase, and I have an excellent relationship with them I don't want to burn. I also have a small side business and have my merchant and biz accounts with them, so I wouldn't want to jeopardize anything on that front by doing any "funny business". I would also be totally cool with just closing the Slate after transferring the limit over to the SW and Freedom card since at least those other two cards have good rewards. Sorry for the long winded post, and thanks for any feedback!
