Credit Cards

[silly34]

Ok my wife has a Zales card, and we have joint Sears card.  We haven't used the cards in at least a year, if we decided to charge something small on them to keep them active will it negatively impact our score?

B.

[txjohn]

No.  Not using them will eventually risk closure due to inactivity.  Just PIF.  Credit cards must be exercised.  Zales and Sears not as often as Visa/MC but at least a couple times a year.

[UpUpUp]

Actually, yes it could. But, it's likely a very small ding. There is a ding for using a card that's been "dormant" for a while. I'm not sure how many months it takes for FICO to consider a card dormant, but I'm betting a year would do it. I swear just 5-6 months and I've seen that little message that says my score went down because I used a card that had not been used for a while. The plus side is that it's just a few points and you get them back quickly.  If it's more important to you to keep the tradelines active so they dont get closed, I'd go ahead and use the cards.

[silly34]

Ok, I'll keep them both below the 9% (at least try with the Zales).  My wife will be happy, she is going to the mall today anyway to see if we can get an increase with Kay's.

B.

[Chris_1970]

I have never had to request a CLI for Kay's. When I opened the account CL was 2500 now it's 6200. Not that I would ever charge that much the APR is ridiculous. My DW recently bought a bracelet but chose the 90 days same as cash option. It's nice to have a CCC give you auto increases when I have Chase that wont even consider one after 5 years.