I was having the dilemma earlier this month. My situation with Capital One is I became a customer by default meaning they bought an old debt from another issuer that went way past collections. The agreement was along the lines of: if you rehab the debt you get a card with a $500 limit. An offer like that was compelling enough to getting back on track with payments. This brought about 2 additional Capital One Cards. I had one with a $500 limit in 1999, another with a $1500 limit in 2000 and the third with a $500 limit in 2002. All of them were acquired through rehabbing a Household Bank account and two other subprime lenders I can’t recall. At any rate the interest rate was absurd, One had a monthly fee of $6.95 and the other two had annual fees around $60.
Somewhere over the years the $1500 limit Card was changed to a Platinum by them, and still had the monthly fee. The other two were changed to Qucksilver One and Quicksilver. They lost the annual fee and the limits were $3000 and $5000 respectively. The Platinum became $7000. Currently I have closed the never growing $3000 Quicksilver One and moved the CL to the Quicksilver and PC the Platinum to a Venture One.
I just became engaged with my credit profile in 2015. I regret I was not prior, but I didn’t want to deal with the mess I created. Having stated all that I hate I paid an absurd amount of money in APR and fees that did nothing but maintain an account. I rarely use either Cap cards. I’ve tried asking for increases over the years and if I got anything it would be a marginal amount.
As the new year began I was thinking about trimming the open accounts. Cap One was on the list. However the Savor Card was interesting enough that I called to see if I could PC the Venture. No go. Was told the Savor was too new to PC and I would have to apply. Well silly me did that and was denied. So my data points: scores range low to high 780s. 1% utilization, credit lines in the low $200k. Cards I have Citi Prestige, Citi AA Executive, US Bank Altitude, Chase Ritz, IHG, and CSP. American Express Platinum and Delta Reserve. Other cards such as Macy’s since 1991 JCrew since 1996, Express since 1995, TJX Rewards MC Best Buy Visa sig. Income 100k plus. Average Age is well established.
Thanks for allowing me to vent. Not a Cap One fan and a firm believer that because these accounts were derived from a low score profile they will never grow. Because they have no annual fee I just keep them in a drawer. I may spend $25 on each per year.
My vote is sock drawer it and move towards better cards.
No, won't hurt your score - closed accounts stay on your credit report for 10 years and count the same as open accounts for your length of credit/average age of accounts. Might bump yout utilization up a tiny bit, but not significantly with those other CLs.
