topic Re: Close Comenity Store Cards or Keep? in Credit Cards

Close Comenity Store Cards or Keep?

kittycreditmeow — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 00:05:04 GMT

I have two store cards from Comenity for Overstock and Carter's that I just paid off. I kind of want to close them because I don't think I will use them again. They are $500 each credit line. They are not my oldest cards but I'm not sure if closing them will affect anything on my report as far as utilization and all that goes. I don't have much available in credit, I think just under $6000 across all my cards.

Re: Close Comenity Store Cards or Keep?

RSX — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 00:09:38 GMT

Close them both

then you can focus your spend on less cards and possibly get CLIs from the ones you have left.

Re: Close Comenity Store Cards or Keep?

pizzadude — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 01:38:48 GMT

Before you decide, compare your revolving utilization now and without these cards in terms of both % and number of accounts with balances.

if either of these changes significantly it will have a negative impact on your FICO score.

Re: Close Comenity Store Cards or Keep?

Reithe — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 12:16:09 GMT

If I'm not mistaken, your credit score would temporarily decrease if you closed your store cards (decrease in AAoA and increase in utilization). Closing them wouldn't be such a bad idea, but you could always sock drawer them and put a small charge on them every now and then just to keep them active.

Re: Close Comenity Store Cards or Keep?

pinkandgrey — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 12:46:38 GMT

I would be of the mind to close them both. If you won't use them, there's no reason to keep them. Their small credit lines probably aren't doing that much for your utilization anyway. (To be fair, I would close them even if they were important for utilization lol)

Re: Close Comenity Store Cards or Keep?

Trini88 — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 14:11:18 GMT

Close them. I feel your pain, I would 100% close my Target card if I didn't shop there all the time and it didn't give me 5% off 🤣

Re: Close Comenity Store Cards or Keep?

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 14:17:53 GMT

I would sock drawer them until closing them won't kill nearly 10% of your credit limit.

Re: Close Comenity Store Cards or Keep?

OmarGB9 — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 14:41:43 GMT

@Reithe wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, your credit score would temporarily decrease if you closed your store cards (decrease in AAoA and increase in utilization). Closing them wouldn't be such a bad idea, but you could always sock drawer them and put a small charge on them every now and then just to keep them active.

Bolded part isn't true. Closed cards in good standing still factor into AAoA for up to 10 years. But utilization could potentially be an issue, depending on where overall number of cards with a balance and overall utilization is at.

Re: Close Comenity Store Cards or Keep?

MarkintheHV — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 16:25:20 GMT

I just closed a $35k CL Lowes card that was my second oldest card, and my FICO only dropped 2 points. YMMV

Re: Close Comenity Store Cards or Keep?

kittycreditmeow — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 21:53:42 GMT

@Trini88

My target card is the one store card I want to keep. The target MasterCard is a goal card of mine so I hope one day to be promoted to the MasterCard.

Re: Close Comenity Store Cards or Keep?

Creditin — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 00:55:10 GMT

Sockdrawer 'em.

If they close in a couple years, you will gain that time, plus the normal age of the account.

Besides, 1k in limited Cls is a lot of money. Specially for utilization.

Futhermore ( this is my personal opinion, not my personal experience) some lenders don't like

to see unwarranted cancellations so soon. IMAO.

Cheers.

Re: Close Comenity Store Cards or Keep?

SoCalGardener — Wed, 02 Mar 2022 23:41:45 GMT

@kittycreditmeow wrote:
I have two store cards from Comenity for Overstock and Carter's that I just paid off. I kind of want to close them because I don't think I will use them again. They are $500 each credit line. They are not my oldest cards but I'm not sure if closing them will affect anything on my report as far as utilization and all that goes. I don't have much available in credit, I think just under $6000 across all my cards.

Normally, when someone is thinking of closing two cards with such low limits, I don't even think twice before saying go ahead! But considering that they make up 1/6th of your total credit...my advice is different.

I'd keep them. If you can use them for purchases you actually WANT to make, do that, pay the bills, and let them age. You'll be building your payment history and your credit age, and you may be able to tweak credit limit increases out of them down the road.

But if you're going to force yourself to charge something just for the sake of keeping them open, you might want to reconsider. I have a few cards I'm really not using and could easily live without, but I'm reluctant to close anything (that's from having financial problems in the past--voluntarily CLOSE a card?!! Never! ). I just toss a small charge on them once a year or so and that's that.

Once you're in a better position to get other, better cards, then you can close them without much hand-wringing. As long as they don't have annual fees, they're really not hurting you, so why not leave them open?