To Close or Not to Close

[girlinthecity]

Hi All -

I will apologize in advance for my ignorance if this has already been addressed. In searching I didn't see anything that gave me the specific answer/understanding (rather) that I am looking for. 

The basics:

I have a very good FICO Score and want to keep to get it out of the upper 700's and into the 800's. I have one a total of 3 credit cards but want to close one (more on that later):

- Oldest (had for over 10 years) = visa with a credit union

- 2nd Oldest (had for 5-7 years) = mastercard w/ Capital One that recently started charging me an annual membership fee; I have paid the card off several times and they also will not increase the credit limit, even after I requested/inquired about it. The only response I've been given is "A limit increase is not available for your account at this time".

- New (just obtained earlier this month) = a rewards visa w/ Chase that has $0 annual fees and a decent interest rate.

Needless to say I want to close the Capital One card b/c: a) they charged an annual fee; and (b) never increase the limit despite having paid the card off several times over the time that I've had it.

I'm hesitant to close the Capital One card because I don't want it to negatively impact my score.

1) Will the new card offset any impact closing this account may have? or

2) Should I keep the account open and never use the card? I don't want to pay an annual fee though.

Thanks in advance for your guidance and credit wisdom

[Anonymous]

The new account will "generally" hurt your score, because of it's age(new), plus the inquiry on the CRA chase pulled.  Closing the Capital One will lower your overall CL, which would increase utilization(assuming you are not PIF each month).  You may consider, instead of calling for a CLI, calling to waive the AF, or doing a product conversion to a no-AF card.  If they let you do a conversion, make sure it does not show up as a new account on your reports.  Good luck!

[girlinthecity]

Thanks Waralpha -

The account is paid in full and generally is - which is why I'm so annoyed at the new annual fee AND the refusal to increase my credit limit once I noticed that it didn't increase automatically like my Visa.

I hadn't thought of asking for a conversion and requesting it NOT show up as a new card. I'll try that - I am really heated by the thought of paying an annual fee JUST to keep my score going up and not down.

As for the inquiry Chase did - it doesn't seem to have an impact. My FiCO monitor shows the inquiry but the score didn't move.