Closing Oldest Account...with other "oldest" accounts.

[fsulonghorn]

Hi everyone, I've been lurking in the forums reading posts almost everyday and in the past 9 months have completely turned my credit upside down, from pretty low to pretty good. I started out with mostly store cards, and subprime banks, and now I have great new cards with great new CLs.!! Thanks all! My question is as follows:

I started with my first couple of cards back in 2005:

1st Financial Bank (4/2005) - CL: $1900 ($0 bal)

Wells Fargo Student Visa (was later changed to regular) - (8/2005) - CL: $1300 ($0 bal)

Bealls (store card) - (09/2005) - CL: $2600 ($0 bal)

I understand it is not good to close the oldest account, but I'm wondering if it would affect my AAoA that much since the 'next oldest' is four months later. I really want to close the 1FBUSA card given it has been charging me an annual fee, has no rewards structure and has an apr of 29.99%. I had considered closing both the Wells Fargo and the 1FBUSA cards and just keep the store card since it has a higher limit and is from the same year. To give you all more info on the other cards I have:

JCPenney 02/2006 - CLOSED

Target 05/2006 - CLOSED

MensWearhouse 07/2006 - CLOSED

CapOne Platinum 05/2010 - CLOSED 

Express (store card) - (08/2010) - CL $1860 ($0 bal)

CapOne NoHassleRew - (10/2011) - CL $750 ($0 bal) **i wanna close this one too given the low limit, but it has 1.5% cashback on everything...ugh

Citi AAdvantage - (02/2013) - CL $5000 ($0 bal)

FNBO Amex - (03/2013) - CL $1000 ($0 bal)

Discover IT - (03/2013) - CL $5000 ($4 bal)

Chase Freedom - (04/2013) - CL $3000 ($16 bal)

Amex Gold PR - (04/2013) ($0 bal)

Amex Platinum MB - (05/2013) ($0 bal)

Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

[guiness56]

Closed accounts still factor into your AAoA so closing it should not hurt your AAoA.

The CL will be removed from factoring into utilization.

[Simply827]

Closing a card won't affect your AAoA as FICO counts both open and closed accounts.

If an account doesn't have an annual fee, I see no harm in keeping it around for a bit just to get additional time.

[thelethargicage]

Keep the WF and Bealls cards.  They're 5 years older than your next most recent card.  Close the 1st Financial card and don't worry too much abou the impact on your AAoA.  It'll be on your CR for another 10 years, and you'll still have 2 more cards that were opened the same year.

[Kutuzov]

Always manage your debt not your credit, and do what works for you rather than a volatile score. I would close all cc with an anual fee, and keep 2 cc, one for daily use as needed and 1 for emergencies, that's it, maybe my favorite store card if it got some sort of good reward if not then nope. I got a house rule with my wife just 1cc is allowed (and it applies to both), and 1 store card, I still didn't get that emergency cc but my credit is not that good either.

[fsulonghorn]

Thanks everyone for the advice! Given the line up of cards with no AFs (or waived 1st year AF's - aka AMEX lol), i'll definitely make it a priority to close the ones with fees. GRACIAS!

[fsulonghorn]

Just got off the phone and closed the 1FBUSA card....feels nice!! Thanks again

[takeshi74]

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@guiness56 wrote:

The CL will be removed from factoring into utilization.

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...and don't overlook how utilization will be impacted.