Called to close the Merrick account and pleasantly surprised that I reached a US-based call center and they even tried to talk me into keeping the card. I know others here have some of their seriously subprime cards with fees, but mine was just low limit ($2500) and fairly high APR of 19.7%. I know I'll never use it, so best to just let it go, and I did. So I've closed out 3 cards and $5k in lines since starting this thread.
I think I should stop for now but still trying to plan out the future and would love some suggestions...
AmEx - For the Premier Rewards Gold, I am on the fence on closing it at some point. The airline credit is going to be hit or miss since I may or not use the airlines available in any given year. (Case in point, using Virgin for the only planned trip so far this year and while Alaska is there Virgin is not). The 2x points on restaurants and gas is superceded now by my CSP, and goes to Discover and Freedom during category quarters. Much of my grocery spend is wholesale, which again goes to Discover or Freedom these days and of course I have the BJs card which is also 5%. I don't really have any reason to use the Blue. Should I consider doing a PC to Blue Cash Preferred and use it solely for the 6% back on grocery? I shouldn't have any issue recouping the annual fee and still netting more than using the PRG + 5% category cards when grocery is in there. Anyone know of any issues doing a PC from a MR revolver like the original Blue card to a cash back revolver? (Edit) - MR cards are only eligible to move within other MR cards. Upgrade path is either EveryDay or EveryDay Preferred. 1.2 MR per $ with 20% bonus on ED isn't enough to make this my daily driver; 3 MR for grocery isn't enough for me to justify the $95 annual fee on EDP since I would already get 2 MR for grocery on my PRG and I'd have to essentially move all of my spend to it to get the 50% bonus. Did get a 1 year APR reduction of 1% (not going to complain since this is one of those 3-tiered APR cards and I was already in the lowest tier) while in chat! I think I'll keep it as a plain vanilla Blue for now - now that they know I'm in the market for a PC perhaps they'll throw an offer my way to "upgrade."
BOA - As stated earlier, I think my plan is to ride out the remainder of the 21 months at 0%, then move the line to my Travel Rewards to make a $28.2k card and close it.
CBNA - On the fence for closing Shell due to age, particularly if I were to close the PRG, but I think I may close it. Even if I could PC it to Drive for Five (which I don't think I can), that's still less than 2% as my car requires 93+ octane fuel.
Chase - No changes planned at the moment. Will run the numbers at some point to see if PCing the CSP to CSR makes sense without a bonus offer. Might be hard to justify when I also have the AmEx Platinum, although I think the travel credit I could use for hotels and use Platinum for 5x MR points on airfare and make it work. Does Global Entry credit also apply to AUs like it does with AmEx?
Citi - Going to ride out BT on this, then either keep it for BTs or PC to a 2nd DC. From doing that with my wife's, I know the BT offers didn't change in frequency or offer types.
No plans to change anything with BJs, Discover, NASA, PenFed, Amazon or Lowe's.
Target I think I'll keep open for a while and just see what happens now that CLIs are actually happening. My Target spend is only about $1200-1800 a year, but even then that's still $60-90 off just for using the card. Kohl's again, my wife and I receive different coupons in the mail so I think it's still worth having two cards.
Finally CapOne. I really think it's a hopeless card. Should I just keep it open, not use it and let them eventually close it? With my profile should I just open a new card (maybe in a year) that rebuckets me with CapOne where I should be, then combine the limits and close the old card? Should I just give up on CapOne completely? It was suggested earlier that I should PC my Venture One to Quicksilver Rewards, but the 1.5% doesn't really give me any incentive to use the card. 20,000 miles on $1k spend would, though. Any rules against applying for a 2nd Venture One (assuming I would get 12.49% rather than the 25.49% I inherited and likely a higher SL than my current card has)? I know that with PCs it is possible to have more than 1 of the same card (and I had 3 Plat MCs and 1 Plat Visa that I combined to make this VO), but not sure if that would be an automatic decline for a cold app.
Thanks again everyone!
@Anonymous wrote:I thought I was the CC hoarder... but yeah... what this person said.
I'm trying not to be! I have closed 9 in the past year.
@kdm31091 wrote:...I feel once you move on to "big boy/girl" cards, Capital One should be left behind. They are great for what they are -- a lender who isn't terribly picky and will give a card to many people trying to rebuild, and will give them some hassle free rewards. But later on, other lenders eclipse them in customer service and account flexibility, etc...
I would rethink some of the "keep" accounts, especially things like Target. Note you can get the same exact benefits with a debit redcard...Even with Kohl's, if you don't have the credit card, they still send myriad coupons just for being in the loyalty program. For the Amex Blue, I don't see much point in keeping it. It's a pretty much useless 1 point per dollar card, and the upgrade options don't interest you/work for your spending. A 1% APR reduction is nice but wouldn't (for me) be enough motivation to keep the account...
Thank you. That pretty much reinforces my own gut feelings. CapOne (and some other lenders that became CapOne) were the only ones who would approve me for cards in the 90s when I was an adult with zero credit (not even AU), and back then no credit was generally worse than having bad credit (and far worse than a BK since at least then they knew you couldn't file BK again). Later in life, I moved on to other lenders but CapOne still seems to just ignore that credit profiles do change for the better over decades. None of their card offerings are particularly attractive to me since I think DC > QS for general spend and AmEx Plat/CSP > VO for travel spend. I think I'll leave it dormant since I know they won't be in a rush to close it for inactivity - then maybe if a better card comes along, I'll grab it and move my existing limit over to that new card.
Good advice on the Target debit to replace their MasterCard. Right now my checking balances sometimes run quite slim once or twice a month since I am aggressively trying to pay off huge balances, so a debit tied to my account would not be best for me at this time but certainly something worth looking at it in the future. Even if the card were maxed out, it's not enough to affect my overall util more than just over half a percent and it's unlikely I would make any charges large enough to make it matter at this point with the number of cards showing balances and where they sit. But certainly something that may make perfect sense for me in the future!
Kohl's I am leaning more in the close than keep direction. My wife would keep hers, but I do know that many of the coupons (particularly 30% off) are only valid when used with the card and as I've mentioned they almost always send us duplicate mailers with us alternating one of us having a higher % off coupon inside. There's also the free shipping without having to spend X after coupons, Kohl's Cash, etc... For us, that often means the difference between $20-50 in Kohl's cash expiring or being used.
Blue I plan to hold onto for the time being. Even letting it sit idle, it's not like I'm going out of my way to manage it since I'm always logging into the same AmEx account for my other cards anyway, and it is my oldest open individual account now and soon will be the oldest individual account altogether since I'll have some closed accounts dropping off soon. Thanks again for the advice everyone!
@Anonymous wrote:
As an aside, the CBNA/NTB card is strange. I closed mine out last month, and this month, it reported as a "closed loan" and my scores sank a bit. No utilization, paid in full. You should hopefully be fine with your profile and credit profile, but I just wanted to make you aware of this strange quirk!
Quick update... The NTB card finally reported to all CBs as closed. Shows as closed, paid, retail card, revolving on all 3 CBs per CCT and CK (TU/EX) - exactly as one would expect. Did yours report as a revolver before?
@Anonymous wrote:
I checked and it appears that they DID update to revolving credit card. I know it said loan at one point, but maybe it fully updated.
That's good to hear. Thanks for letting me know, though, as that was certainly something to watch for.
@Chris679 wrote:
I would not worry about 10 years from now. At that time you will still have accounts that are 25 years old. I have 829 FICO 8 right now with no account over 9 years old and avg only around 5 years.
Thanks for the input, and that is certainly some good food for thought. I think I'm just concerned with what happens if I do too much too soon in the way of closing. Also keeping in the back of my mind that FICO 08 may not be the most commonly used model a decade on so just trying to be as smart as I can about future-proofing myself since some of the newer models do not use closed accounts in AAoA. I also know enough at this point that credit scores are NOT everything (sacrilege here, I know) and I'm just as likely to get comparable terms and limits as those with credit scores 70+ points higher than me (I'm in the 730s right now), and often better due to income and a thick file with thousands of on-time payments.