is this sound idea

[Anonymous]

have about 22 credit card accounts , no lates ever, util. is about 30% cl from 51000. to 1700.00 per card,

on some boa accounts and chase i transfered the credit from other cards on to one card for 0% balance transfers

would like to close some of the cards i took credit limit from, age of cards i would close would be 1 to 4 years

old, with very low cl 300.00 to 500.00 average age of all my accounts is 7 years with oldest being 19 years old

avg cl of all cards about 9300.00 i would think closing these rather new and low cl cards would boost my avg cl

and increase length of avg credit card, all 3 ex tu eq list too many credit accounts. would close 4 cards in all

oldest one from 2004 any advice would help fico scores are from 710 to 735

Message Edited by jjmcc323 on 01-29-2009 07:02 PM

[WhirledPeasPlease]

Have you read the closing credit cards thread in the "Helpful Threads" post that's stickied at the top of the CC Forum?

Closing cards won't take them out of the AAoA until they go poof in 10 years.

[Anonymous]

yes i read helpfull hints , all 3 credit bur. say i have too many credit card accounts , i am trying to thin the herd

also getting rid of low limit cards should boost my utl per card now that 4 cards are not taking away from my

high limit cards

[WhirledPeasPlease]

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jjmcc323 wrote:

yes i read helpfull hints , all 3 credit bur. say i have too many credit card accounts , i am trying to thin the herd

This sounds like advice from TrueCredit, not myFICO.  Can you tell us where you got this information? 

also getting rid of low limit cards should boost my utl per card now that 4 cards are not taking away from my

high limit cards

Pay off the low limit cards, but keep them open to help with overall util.  I'm not exactly sure what you're saying when you say "taking away from my high limit cards".  Can you explain?

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[oracles]

Hi jjmcc

Having too many cards is not hurting your fico score. I can only see this being a problem if you are going for a house. The mortgage lender may ask you to close some accounts because you have too much available credit.

If you are not going for a mortgage then you should not worry about this remark.

If you close your credit cards, it will not effect your AAofA until after 10 years when it will come off, therefore if you close them, it will not increase your average age now.

Also fico does not care about your average limit of your cards. It cares about your util% of your cards.

Therefore if you have 100k in total limits and 30k balances, you have 30% util

If you close cards with 15k of your limits, you now have 85k limit available and still 30k in balances.

now you have 35% util and your score will go down.

The only reason why you should close an account is if it has a fee associated with it.

Pay no attention to the remark of too many credit cards.

Hope this helps