When to close a account?

[Anonymous]

When is the best time to close a credit card and/or remove yourself as a AU on someone else account?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

When is the best time to close a credit card and/or remove yourself as a AU on someone else account?

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There are many answers depending on your particular situation. 

When you no longer need it.

When it doesn't effect your utilization.

Just two possibilities. Others in the forum will provide good feedback for you. Good luck and whatever you decide, I suggest you don't do it without consideration so that you don't regret the closing.

[ddemari]

Like the other poster said, there are a lot of reasons and times to close out a card. 

I would consider closing out a card first and foremost if your overall utilization was low, therefore not allowing the closed card to spike up your utilization and lower your FICO score. 

If your utilization is low and you dont need the card and there is no balance on it, then close away. 

[Anonymous]

or if you're an AU and the other person is going to have a late payment or they're running up high utilization on that card. it can drag you down.

[Anonymous]

There is a thread under the "helpful threads" sticky that has details on the FICO impacts of closing an account.

In general, I would get myself removed from an AU account if it wasn't useful to me. If it was adversely affecting my score, but was a useful card, it would become more of a judgment call.

For my own cards, I would close any cards that I haven't used for six months, unless I have a strong reason to believe that I would use them in the upcoming six months.