topic Pruning in Credit Cards

Pruning

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 03:11:29 GMT

Would like to prune....I have too many store cards. Is it best to close newer ones to raise my aaoa or will closing those newer cards not make a difference? I just got approved two new cards, $14k cl between the two of them, and have almost 0% utilization...will try to stay around 1% once I get the Amex.

Re: Pruning

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 03:17:56 GMT

Also....I really, really want to close my credit one card, but it helps my aaoa as it's over 5 years old. They charge an $8.25/mth fee, which is just annoying.

Re: Pruning

mikey78 — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 03:22:20 GMT

if your going to be closing I hear it's best to close the newest cards
but also consider that is it worth paying any extra fees like annual fees or monthly charges just for the sake of keeping your oldest card active?

remember also that even if you close it they will stay on your report for 10 years

I killed all my oldest cards that had Annual fees on it except one.. and that was opened 2007
my oldest card was 2002

don't let annual fees keep you as a hostage just for keeping aaoa .. call your CC and see if you can do something about it
aaoa is 10% of your fico score or was it 15% either way it's not a big factor

Re: Pruning

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 04:59:19 GMT

Couple of months ago I called Credit One and told them I wanted to cancel the card. They asked why and I said because of the annual fee. They offered to waive it for 6 months. You might try that.

I plan to call back in December and try the same thing. Since I've been on an app spree the last couple of months, I could really use it for AAoA, but out of principle I am done paying Credit One's AF so I will close it if they don't offer to extend the waiver. I especially hate that they charge their AF as $8.25/month, and their website doesn't allow you to pay more than your balance so you ALWAYS have a balance on your statement and CR with them.