Heres one thing im going to disagree with you on.. if your paying a fee just for the privledge of having a card... with no benefits, you ditch it as soon as you have better products... You dont keep paying for a predatory or builder card once youve gotten beyond that point.. esp if theres a fee attached....you dont wait for it to close on its own.. its only a stepping stone, not the final destination.... you dont pay for another year of it.... There are other cards which you do keep and let close on their own but predatory/AF cards with annual and or monthly fees... without providing benifits that offset those fees... go to the shredder.... they are like tissues, you use them and then you throw them away when they are no longer needed.....
-J
I think it's also important to consider the rest of your accounts. If cards are clustered within a few months vs spread out over years the hit is going to be negligible. Also, assuming responsible use, low util, by the time 10 years has passed any current derogs will be gone and so a theoretical loss of 10 points shouldn't really be a huge thing. If closing cards helps with responsible use it is probably a net gain in the long run. I have some 0 AF cards that I'll close eventually when I get cards to replace the util/reward type. Sure, I'll take a slight hit for it down the road, but it also means one less account to cycle, to accidentally mismanage because it's not in active use, etc.
