Opinions Wanted: 12 months of "OK" VS: 24 months of "OK"

[grillandwinemaster]

Good morning Fico Friends and family!

I need opinions as to wether I should close out my First Premier CC and my Credit One CC's just before the 1 year anniversary to avoid paying the silly fees imposed by those two creditors,  I'm fully aware that both will continue to report positively for a full 10 years after closure.  My question is from a purely "fico scoring" perspective, is it better to show 24 months of "OK" payments on my CR, as opposed to just showing 12 months of "OK" payments?  

I have already been able to get Cap 1 QuickSilver 1, as well as Barclays MC Rewards.  In addition I also have a handful of Commenity and Synchrony store/retail cards.  So my credit repair journey is well under way.  

So, what do my Fico friends opine?  12 or 24???

Thanks in advance for all your input.

[Anonymous]

I closed my only secured CC at 8 months of age, after getting a QS1 and Barclay Rewards. I saw little to no effect on my scores. Both of my other cards had about 3-5 months of age on them at the time.

That's just my experience with it. I just saw it as not being able to do too much damage, since I was really starting to rebuild with the cards that would be more helpful for the long run.

FYI - When my QS1 hit 6 months I called and asked if it could be upgraded to the QS with no AF, and they upgraded it.

[Anonymous]

There is somewhat of a split on this. Some say wait until they are no longer considered 'new' accounts (25 month mark), others say dump them if you have non-AF accounts set up to replace them prior to the first annual fees. I'm in the save your hard earned money camp.

Obviously FICO is not going to divulge that much detail about the scoring model, so whether its advantageous or not (to wait) is really just an educated geuss, BUT, my take on it is this - whether its closed before or after its considered "mature" by FICO, its still *GONE* as an active account. From what we know about FICO, closed accounts only factor into AAoA, if I'm not mistaken, so I think that whether the account matured or not just isn't really *that* relevant. Whats important is having the requisite tradelines in place and reporting BEFORE closing them, IMO.

Others may disagree here.

[grillandwinemaster]

Thank you both for your insightful advice! I'm leaning towards paying them off, and shutting them down. I'm just not enjoying those CC's anymore. They did there job, so I'm thankful for that. Any other thoughts? Thanks again!

[RobertEG]

You obtain positive credit for accounts based on growth in their lenght of credit history, not by avoding negative points.

Closing had has one immediate impact.  You will loset the credit limit of the account in your % util calculation.

If the account is closed in good-standing, the creditor will not continue to report.  The prior histiory just wont be deleted unless or until the CRA chooses to administrative delete at approx 10 years after closure under their arbitrary housekeeping policy.

Future impact could occur if the credit chooses to then delete the entire account after it is closed.

The account would then be removed from your AAoA scoring.  Obviously, the consumer has no control over entire deletion by the creditor.

In my opinion, I would close the accounts and save $$.