Pay off closed CC or open CC first?

[kmacqua]

I've just paid off a high APR credit card and am ready to pay down the next card.  I have two cards with the same APR, one is closed and the other is open.  Both are in good standing and have a history of on-time payments.  What move would best help me rebuild my FICO, pay down the closed account or the open account?  I think that the paying down the open account will improve debt to credit limit ratio. But I also think it can't be good to have a closed account with a balance sitting on my credit report for long.

[Chris679]

Both cards count toward your overall utilization %.  The difference is in the way FICO will score the util for each account.  Since the closed account will show a zero limit it is essentially maxed out and that will hurt your score more than the open card.  I would start paying the closed one down first and maybe even try to reopen it if the terms were ok.

[kmacqua]

Thank you!

Do you (or anyone else) happen to know if I do reopen the account, does it reopen the SAME account, i.e. keep my old account start date (2004 or 2005, I believe), or would I essentially be opening a new account with a new start date that would lower my overall average age of accounts? 

[navistar]

Try to negotiate those terms with credit card company and see where you get

[Chris679]

---

@kmacqua wrote:

Thank you!

Do you (or anyone else) happen to know if I do reopen the account, does it reopen the SAME account, i.e. keep my old account start date (2004 or 2005, I believe), or would I essentially be opening a new account with a new start date that would lower my overall average age of accounts? 

---

Explain to them that you want to keep the history on the account by reopening the old one.  If they told you to apply for a new account then just say thanks but no thanks.