$100k Amex / Capital One $500

[K-in-Boston]

Cap One definitely has bucketed cards, although I'm not sure of the accuracy or dating of the BINs starting with 5178 that you found.  Cap One has a massive number of MasterCard BINs (mostly for prepaid products).  There are certainly both Visa and MasterCard products that are "bucketed."  Cap One did allow merging of accounts until a few years ago, but that is no longer the case. 

I had a couple of accounts in the 90s (shortly after they changed their name to Capital One) that I long ago merged into another account opened around 2000, and then in 2015 I found myself with a total of 4 Cap One cards (2 originally Cap One and another 2 that had been acquired from other lenders, all opened at the turn of the century).  I combined those into one card of around $10k and was able to do a product change to Venture One, but no matter what they were not budging with a CLI.  I finally ended up closing the card in 2016.  Essentially, those older cards that I acquired when I had very little (but never bad) credit were never going to change even with credit scores in the 800s and other credit cards with limits close to 6 digits.

As mentioned upthread, you may want to try to see if you can product change them to cards with no annual fees if the age is very important to you.  But they will definitely continue to stay on your credit reports and contribute to credit aging for up to 10 years, at which point all of your other accounts will have also aged.  But even with no annual fees, I ultimately decided to just cut the cord despite the card ages.

[Anonymous]

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@bigseegar wrote:

Just curious on the AmEx card. Which card do yiou have? Because I have 6 AmEx card, 3 Chargers (Platinum, Gold and Green) and 3 Credit (BCP, HH, EDC) and I've been a Member since 1984 and Chargers don't have a hard limit (although there is a formula AX uses that sets an unknown one internally) I don't think I've ever seen a $100K on a Credit card with them.

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It's an Amex Platinum Open.  A local business rep (who knew) reached out to me with a push to pay all of our business bills through Amex.  I had a 20k monthly ceiling that moved to 100k after providing them with business bank statements.  While it is a business card, it is tied to my social.

[K-in-Boston]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@bigseegar wrote:

Just curious on the AmEx card. Which card do yiou have? Because I have 6 AmEx card, 3 Chargers (Platinum, Gold and Green) and 3 Credit (BCP, HH, EDC) and I've been a Member since 1984 and Chargers don't have a hard limit (although there is a formula AX uses that sets an unknown one internally) I don't think I've ever seen a $100K on a Credit card with them.

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It's an Amex Platinum Open.  A local business rep (who knew) reached out to me with a push to pay all of our business bills through Amex.  I had a 20k monthly ceiling that moved to 100k after providing them with business bank statements.  While it is a business card, it is tied to my social.

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Charge cards unfortunately don't really count when comparing their spending ability to revolving card products.  Your credit reports will not reflect your current spending ability (other than the high balance column, but of course even with a revolving product your reports can reflect $200,000 in the high balance column and $2,000 for the current limit if you have since received a credit line decrease or otherwise reallocated your limit) and other lenders are not privvy to Amex's internal algorithms and data.  (Edit: Also as yours is a business product it will not reflect on personal reports unless serious delinquent.)  My 3 charge cards definitely each have spending ability past $100k, but my total revolving limits with Amex are "only" around $90k.  Underwriting is very different between charge and revolving products with AENB.

Edit 2: To address an earlier post, Amex will definitely issue 6-digit (and even 7-digit) revolving credit limits.

[HeavenOhio]

@Anonymous, definitely call in and see if these cards can be upgraded to no-fee products. That doesn't help you with the low limits, but it would get rid of the main reason for closing the cards.

[SoCalGardener]

Nineteen years is a long time! They're definitely bucketed. So...

1) Try what @HeavenOhio suggested. Then, if that doesn't work,

2) Close them. They're not worth keeping.

[brk1971]

I used to think closing one or more of my oldest accounts was bad also until I learned they still get factored into your average age of accounts until they stop reporting (10 years). 

There is absolutely no reason to keep a Cap1 account open once you've outgrown that level of lender, and you've cited two reasons to close it in your post (bucketed and annual fee). 

[Remedios]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have 2 Capital One Cards that were opened in 2003.  One with $500 limit, the other with $1000.  Expensive yearly fees.  Have never been able to get them to increase the limits.  Use them every month to the limits with recurring subscriptons/groceries and pay off full statement balance.  

I am so pissed at these cards but don't want to cancel them due to the history.  For context, mid 700's credit score and have an Amex with $100k limit.

This forum has been very helpful to me over the years and would love some advice on how to combine this down to a single Capital One card with a 10k or more limit.

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Which other cards do you have? 

I'm just making sure your two cap one cards aren't your only credit cards in addition to one charge card.

If they happen to be your only ones, do not close them unless you've been approved for another credit card purely from scoring perspective. Having your only account be a charge card wouldn't be pretty, though I personally would love to see those data points. 

If they aren't your only ones and cap one will not remove/waive AFs on them, close them 10 years ago.