topic Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed in Credit Cards

Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

CaptainConcorde — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 03:38:23 GMT

I'm a little over two years post Chapter 7 Bankruptcy and my rebuild is going very nicely. I'm gardening until summer 2027. Most of my cards were obtained within six months post BK so my age of account is generally the same. There are a couple cards I'd like to close just from a management perspective. I don't use them, they have low credit limits, and high interest rates. They're kind of "subpar" cards designed for rebuilds so they've served the purpose.

I know the general advice is "never close a card". Because my age of accounts is so static though I don't think I'll see a big effect from dumping three cards. Likewise the slight decrease in credit available is negligible and I just got a $8000 CLI on one of my NFCU cards that isn't reporting yet. So if I cancel these cards now I'll still be showing increased credit lines and available. My utilization is under 2% and I pay off the cards monthly.

The cards I want to eliminate are Petal Visa ($800), Capital One Venture ($800), Seen Mastercard $1000, and Credit One AMEX ($1000). This would drop my available credit lines from $95150 to $91550. It would also leave me with the cards I primarily use and make it easier to manage them. Even now I "rotate" cards every few days and make a minor purchase or two on most of them then pay it off. Just to keep them active. But these four cards never get used.

So would it be OK to close them? Am I correct in thinking the hit to my FICO score would be almost invisible since I just got a $8000 CLI on another card? Should I be OK to close them? Thanks.

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

pizzadude — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 03:45:15 GMT

You'll be fine to close these cards, it should have no impact on your FICO score given your other credit limits / utilization.

The "never close a card" advice is YMMV - you should do what is best for your situation and needs

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

ptatohed — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 03:49:59 GMT

I'd keep any No-AF cards open, lock them, file them away, and wait for the creditor to close them. But that's me. If you close them, you'll be fine.

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

radiofrequencies — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 03:58:25 GMT

The only time closing a credit card directly impacts your score is if it is your only open credit card. Your credit age isn't affected until 10 years post closure because closed accounts stay on your credit reports for 10 years. When the closed accounts fall off of your reports in 10 years, your other accounts will have aged 10 more years and you likely will not see any score drop. Feel free to close any accounts you don't want to deal with any more, especially that Credit One card.

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

DeeBee78 — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 07:12:48 GMT

Close any of the subprime cards, especially that have an annual fee. Merrick Bank should be on your list too.

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

TrapLine — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 10:04:23 GMT

Closing accounts slowly over the years as my spend pattern and utilization changes. Also, wanted a simpler life and quit chasing credit cards. The Posters in this thread pretty well covered it.

Things to be aware of: Average Age of Account; Oldest Account; Utilization as that can affect buearu scores. Since I watch all of that, the closings have not caused any Fico or Vantage Score changes.

Did have an oops back in time when I closed an old account that did not have other older accounts as a back stop and, my credit bureau score took a hit. It took a long while to build the scores back. Loosing old accounts over time can be helpful and eliminate the need for usage when the spend can be better placed on cards yielding your best rewards.

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

mgood — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:51:26 GMT

If it's charging an annual fee, and you're not getting much use from it, close it. Like yesterday.

Never close a card that's not costing you anything to keep open . . . unless you're getting to a point where they're becoming tiresome to manage all of them and you just want to thin the herd. Sounds like you're approaching that point. Have at it, if you'd like. It won't hurt your score.

It could bring down your average age of accounts. As mentioned, they stay on your reports for up to ten years after closing, so it'll be a long time before this matters and your average age should look much better by then. Keep in mind that having a bunch of old cards will help with average age as newer cards are added and bring down that average. My four oldest cards really don't do much for me, but I keep them just to help the average age.

I don't remember the details, but there are people here who say that when your average credit limit is above a certain point you get a boost on the score that determines what you pay for car insurance. So getting rid of low-limit cards can help that average.

I hardly ever close cards, but I did axe one recently. My Eddie Bauer Mastercard wasn't getting much use. (They closed the Eddie Bauer store near me where I used to use it frequently.) Wasn't costing anything, but wasn't doing much to help either. (Paid me 3% back at Eddie Bauer instead of the 2% I can get with several catch-all cards. Insignificant with the small amount of shopping I do there now.) And I was thinking that the herd could stand some thinning. Due to lack of use, they lowered my limit from $8.5k to $3.4k. That made it my lowest limit. Plenty for my needs at Eddie Bauer, but it did drag down the average a little. I decided that they're right, I'm not using it, and called and asked them to close the account.

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

ocheosa — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 13:20:59 GMT

@CaptainConcorde

I would close any cards not wanted, especially at this early stage in your rebuild.

A couple of recommendations:

Consider reallocting the Venture limit to your Quicksilver before closing so you only lose partial credit line.
Check if your Quicksilver or Platinum qualifies for an upgrade to the Savor? From what I've read the system doesn't seem to always offer Savor upgrade from Platinum so you may need to go: Quicksilver to Savor and Platinum to Quicksilver. YMMV.

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

CaptainConcorde — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 15:00:52 GMT

All of the cards are No Annual Fee. I had two with AF right after BK (a different Credit One and one other) but I cancelled them at eleven months.

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

1lifeisworthit — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 16:33:58 GMT

@CaptainConcorde wrote:

I know the general advice is "never close a card".

The general advice has never, at any time, ever been that. Not one single time.

You should close all cards you don't want to keep. There are cards you should prioritize closing first... A hierarchy of closing, so to speak.... But that is not at all the same as stating all cards should be kept open no matter how awful they are..

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

FicoMike0 — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 17:03:22 GMT

I agree, no penalty to close cards.

You have three Capone cards, might see if you can pc the venture to a savior, which I find more useful. From an account management standpoint, it really doesn't make much difference how many Capone cards you have unless it zero.

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

AndrewF — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 18:05:27 GMT

@radiofrequencies wrote:
The only time closing a credit card directly impacts your score is if it is your only open credit card. Your credit age isn't affected until 10 years post closure because closed accounts stay on your credit reports for 10 years. When the closed accounts fall off of your reports in 10 years, your other accounts will have aged 10 more years and you likely will not see any score drop. Feel free to close any accounts you don't want to deal with any more, especially that Credit One card.

It might not matter much to your credit score, but it can affect lender decisions. They're not limited to considering a FICO score.

If they look and see too many credit cards, then it can signal to them that you're a churner and you also only use each card for its highest rewards category, which means your spending on their card will be dilute, only in the highest rewards category, and chasing a spending bonus.

They don't want customers like that. Banks hate losing money and the only thing they hate more than losing money is customers that do it to them quickly and obviously and move on and don't even use the product that much.

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

ElvisCaprice — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 21:24:05 GMT

@AndrewF wrote:

If they look and see too many credit cards, then it can signal to them that you're a churner and you also only use each card for its highest rewards category, which means your spending on their card will be dilute, only in the highest rewards category, and chasing a spending bonus.

How does a new issuer know what your specific spend was on a CC outside their issuance? How many CC's is too many?

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

radiofrequencies — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 21:50:57 GMT

@AndrewF wrote:
It might not matter much to your credit score, but it can affect lender decisions. They're not limited to considering a FICO score.

If they look and see too many credit cards, then it can signal to them that you're a churner and you also only use each card for its highest rewards category, which means your spending on their card will be dilute, only in the highest rewards category, and chasing a spending bonus.

They don't want customers like that. Banks hate losing money and the only thing they hate more than losing money is customers that do it to them quickly and obviously and move on and don't even use the product that much.

I don't agree that closing credit cards will negatively impact future lending decisions. The one exception to that is closing a card less than 12 months after opening it can negatively affect a future application with that same lender.

It sounds like you're saying that opening too many accounts can negatively affect your chances of future approvals and I think that is definitely true. Lenders consider the recency and velocity of your open accounts, like the infamous 5/24 Chase rule. And I think Amex will only allow two applications within 90 days. There probably is an upper limit on the number open accounts being beneficial and once you reach that point, lenders may start declining your applications with the reasons "too many active accounts", "too much available credit relative to income", or something similar.

In general, no one should decide to keep an account open they no longer want or see value in for the sake of improving their future approval odds, and that's especially true if they don't want to put in the time to keep tabs on the account monthly. I'd even argue that closing old unused accounts could improve future approval odds by keeping you away from the upper limit of too many open accounts.

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

radiofrequencies — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 22:11:20 GMT

@TrapLine wrote:
Closing accounts slowly over the years as my spend pattern and utilization changes. Also, wanted a simpler life and quit chasing credit cards. The Posters in this thread pretty well covered it.

Things to be aware of: Average Age of Account; Oldest Account; Utilization as that can affect buearu scores. Since I watch all of that, the closings have not caused any Fico or Vantage Score changes.

Did have an oops back in time when I closed an old account that did not have other older accounts as a back stop and, my credit bureau score took a hit. It took a long while to build the scores back. Loosing old accounts over time can be helpful and eliminate the need for usage when the spend can be better placed on cards yielding your best rewards.

Average age of accounts and age of oldest account do not change immediately when you close an account as closed accounts stay on your credit reports for 10 years. By the time a closed account falls off of your credit reports, your other accounts will be 10 years older and pick up the slack.

Also, there is no such thing as a "credit bureau score". The credit bureaus collect data from your lenders and maintain your credit reports. Your credit reports are then fed into one of the credit scoring algorithms, like VantageScore 3.0, FICO 2, FICO 8, FICO 10T, VantageScore 4.0, etc., to produce a credit score.

Back when you closed an account and saw a drop in one of your credit scores, it wasn't related to your aging metrics changing. While opening a new account affects your aging metrics, closing an old account does not. If you closed your only open credit card, that would have lowered your score since the scoring algorithms give points for having an open revolving account. The score drop you saw also could have been caused by your utilization increasing if losing the available credit from the closed account pushed your new utilization above certain thresholds.

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

Thomas_Thumb — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 23:12:44 GMT

@CaptainConcorde wrote:
There are a couple cards I'd like to close just from a management perspective. I don't use them, they have low credit limits, and high interest rates. They're kind of "subpar" cards designed for rebuilds so they've served the purpose.

The slight decrease in credit available is negligible and I just got a $8000 CLI on one of my NFCU cards that isn't reporting yet. So if I cancel these cards now I'll still be showing increased credit lines and available. My utilization is under 2% and I pay off the cards monthly.

The cards I want to eliminate are Petal Visa ($800), Capital One Venture ($800), Seen Mastercard $1000, and Credit One AMEX ($1000). This would drop my available credit lines from $95150 to $91550. These four cards never get used.

So would it be OK to close them? Am I correct in thinking the hit to my FICO score would be almost invisible since I just got a $8000 CLI on another card? Should I be OK to close them? Thanks.

Close them. There should be no impact on Fico scores.

Your AAoA will not change since that metric includes closed accounts. Closure will increase your ACL. That metric is used by CBIS algorithms such as LexisNexis and TransUnion. Higher ACLs can boost CBIS which can help lower insurance premiums.

Side note:

Fico looks at highest individual card utilization as a scoring metric independent of aggregate revolving utilization. Reporting above 29% UT on a card may drop score and above 49% could cause a further drop. So, small limit cards reporting modest balances can hurt even if impact on aggregate UT is negligible.

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

CaptainConcorde — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 02:30:08 GMT

The Cap1 Platinum was upgraded to a QuickSilver about two months ago. I didn't ask they just did it. So now I have two QS cards. How would I go about reallocating the Venture to another card? Just call and ask? Honestly I'd be happy just having one Cap1 card. Would they combine all into one credit line?

"A couple of recommendations:

Consider reallocting the Venture limit to your Quicksilver before closing so you only lose partial credit line.
Check if your Quicksilver or Platinum qualifies for an upgrade to the Savor? From what I've read the system doesn't seem to always offer Savor upgrade from Platinum so you may need to go: Quicksilver to Savor and Platinum to Quicksilver. YMMV.'

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

ocheosa — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 02:55:33 GMT

@CaptainConcorde wrote:
The Cap1 Platinum was upgraded to a QuickSilver about two months ago. I didn't ask they just did it. So now I have two QS cards. How would I go about reallocating the Venture to another card? Just call and ask? Honestly I'd be happy just having one Cap1 card. Would they combine all into one credit line?

"A couple of recommendations:
Consider reallocting the Venture limit to your Quicksilver before closing so you only lose partial credit line.
Check if your Quicksilver or Platinum qualifies for an upgrade to the Savor? From what I've read the system doesn't seem to always offer Savor upgrade from Platinum so you may need to go: Quicksilver to Savor and Platinum to Quicksilver. YMMV.'

@CaptainConcorde , When you reallocate limits its set up like a credit limit increase so you will need to wait 6 months before combining the last two cards. The steps:

-select your venture card
-select manage your credit card
-select transfer credit lines between cards and follow the prompts

Re: Wanting to Close Some Accounts - Advice Needed

bs1234 — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 14:49:54 GMT

@1lifeisworthit wrote:
@CaptainConcorde wrote:

I know the general advice is "never close a card".

The general advice has never, at any time, ever been that. Not one single time.

You should close all cards you don't want to keep. There are cards you should prioritize closing first... A hierarchy of closing, so to speak.... But that is not at all the same as stating all cards should be kept open no matter how awful they are..

Well, over time there has been a strong contingent advocating "Never close any non-AF card" and at times that has dominated, so with the "no AF" caveat, that sort of has been "general advice". I've never agreed with it but that's a different issue!

Those is the "keep em all" camp will argue: it doesn't cost anything (especially as mentioned here, you can lock them) and you keep the CL, the age beyond the 10 years (or whatever) and may have the ability to PC to a more useful card. For those in the "clean out the trash" camp, these aren't so compelling reasons.