I see that the general recommendation here is to not close accounts, one because your total credit line will drop and two because you're cutting off your credit history.
But what if the card you'd like to close is only a few months old and your total credit line is high? I have 16 active cards now and $54,700 in available credit. Closing this new card would drop that by $3600 (and give me one less card to keep track of). I have essentially no outstanding debt on these cards, so the UTL is minimal to none. In other words, I don't see the drop in total available credit as having much impact. On the other hand, my limited account history hurts me.
My goal here would be to improve my average account length, which as it stands is 3 years. My oldest accounts are 6 years old. In the last year and a half, I've only opened 1 account, which was 4 months ago. Will closing this account increase my average account length and potentially improve my score in the history component? What would you do in this situation?
