Advice for applying for a new credit card...

[harleyquinn]

Happy Saturday All,

I currently am in the process of getting my score a bit higher...aren't we all??  (current Fako score from Wamu is 702) though I need to pull my actual reports.

Currently I have a WAMU card that I have totally paid off, the CL is about 5K.  I called them to ask them to waive my annual fee which they refused to do...(asked for Supervisors etc) since I had paid the card off, used it, paid it down again etc.

I am thinking of applying for a Barnes and Noble Mastercard (issued by Barclay's Bank Delaware) , but was wondering should I:

1-Apply for the Barnes and Noble Mastercard and Transfer the Balance from WaMu( though it is paid off) to Barnes and Noble

2- Do the above and close my WaMu card (I know this dings my score...but that annual fee is pissing me off)

3- Apply for the Barnes and Noble card, but keep WaMu open if I get it....and suck it up and keep paying the annual fee.

There is no guarantee of course that if I did get the Barnes and Noble card they would give me the same credit limit I currently have with WaMu (which is the oldest CC I have)

Ideas? Advice? A chocolate chip cookie?

[Bella1980]

Ok, I may be really dumb here but how is option #1 possible if you have no balance on the wamu card?? What would you transfer? $0. Please explain.

[harleyquinn]

My explanation is that I am new to the "credit card game" and that was a mistake on my part.  Then, basically what I am asking advice on is : Should I attempt to open a new card with B&N and close my WaMu....or would that hurt my credit to badly?  Should I attempt to open and just keep WaMu open and suck up the annual fee? 

[Anonymous]

How old is the Wamu card?

If the WaMu is not that old, I would A> apply for another card like from chase, Boa, one of the prime cards. If you want a B/N card, apply for that too. Once you have the new cards, call WaMu and cancel. At that point they may decide to waive the annual fee, rather than lose you.

That's just how I would handle it.

[haulingthescoreup]

Be sure to read fused's Closing Credit Cards thread (linked in my siggy.)

The main thing is to make sure that you have at least as much new available credit as on the card that is being closed.

If you're still in early days yet, you might want to pay the fee one more time and keep the card another year. But if you already have plenty of available credit, it's reasonable to close it.

A $5K CL is quite a lot to blow off, unless you have oodles of other credit and it won't be missed for util purposes.

[harleyquinn]

Thanks for the sound advice, I think I will probably keep the WaMu card, it was formerly a Providian card and is actually one of the older cards I have (opened it in 1999)

You are right in pointing out that I may not get the kind of credit line, so I will suck up the annual fee and try again to have it waived when the time is right.

Thank you everyone!

[ma_fico]

BTW - that WaMu score isn't a FAKO - it's a credit-card-enhanced FICO score (aka PFICO).

(And a pretty nice score, at that!)