Balance Transfer and Cancelling Card (Oldest?) - Need Advice

[Anonymous]

Hi All

Here is my situation -

I'm 34. My current credit score is just under 800.

I have the following 3 cards open -

Capital One - 23.95% APR (first card I ever had - since I was 18) - PAID OFF ($4,300 limit)
Chase Slate - 13.74% APR (opened around 2005 - but was not originally a Slate card) - PAID OFF ($7,500 limit)
Chase Freedom - 14.74% (opened around 2006 - but was not originally a Freedom card) - $10K open balance ($13,000 limit)
** Chase changed my cards and sent me new ones as the years went on.

I am researching my options in doing a balance transfer to a new card to pay off the Chase Freedom card.

Citi is offering a 0% APR Simplicity card for 21 months on balance transfers and new purchases, which is good, because I consolidated all of my recurring payments onto the Freedom card.

I do not want to cancel my Cap One card since it is my first card and has great credit history on it, but it has a $4,300 limit and 23.95% APR. I've done a lot of reading about Cap One and it seems like Cap One does not like to reduce interest rates for anyone.

I do not want more than 3 cards in my name (truthfully, I would be content with just 2).

So, I originally wanted to transfer my Chase balance to another card, have the Chase balance paid in full and cancel that card, since that's the last card I opened (albeit, over 10 years ago).

How damaging would it be if I transferred my balance from my Chase card to a new card, but kept the Chase open (paid in full - transfer my recurring payments to the 0% APR card) and cancelled the Cap One card.

I don't want to use it due to the extremely high APR. It's strictly for emergencies only, but even then, I still don't want to use it.

Should I avoid the balance transfer and just pay down the Chase card like normal (micro payments) and keep the 3 existing cards open?

Should I look into the balance transfer and cancel the Cap One card, since I still have 10+ years of good credit history with the two Chase cards?

Any advice / suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Anonymous]

3 active cards is the minimum for a strong FICO score. 4-5 seems to be the best but those two extra cards can hurt your score when they're new accounts.

Closing Capital one will keep the account's age for up to 10 more years, but after that it will disappear. Try the Capital One upgrade link posted on this forum to see if they have an upgrade offer with a lower APR.

[SunriseEarth]

Why not just BT from the Cap One card and SD it?     IME, Cap One is slow to close accounts for inactivity.

[dragontears]

Citi is a bit notorious for low starting limits so you may not get a high enough limit to transfer 10k

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
3 active cards is the minimum for a strong FICO score. 4-5 seems to be the best but those two extra cards can hurt your score when they're new accounts.

Closing Capital one will keep the account's age for up to 10 more years, but after that it will disappear. Try the Capital One upgrade link posted on this forum to see if they have an upgrade offer with a lower APR.

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Thanks ABCD.  

Not too keen on the idea of 4 cards, but, two of them would ultimately be SD'ed then. 

I'll check out the Cap One upgrade option though. 

[Anonymous]

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@SunriseEarth wrote:

Why not just BT from the Cap One card and SD it?     IME, Cap One is slow to close accounts for inactivity.

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What do you mean BT from the Cap One card?  

The Cap One is paid off and I really don't want to put anything on it due to the high APR. 

I haven't used it in over a year and they haven't closed it or sent me anything about closing, so, yeah it does seem like they are really slow in closing accounts. 

[Anonymous]

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@dragontears wrote:
Citi is a bit notorious for low starting limits so you may not get a high enough limit to transfer 10k

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Thanks.  I did not know that. 

I'm still researching a good BT card. Citi was the one that got my attention due to the 0% APR on transfers and new purchases for 21 months.  That's the longest 0% APR time period I've seen so far.  Most fall between 12 to 15 months, which is standard. 

[Anonymous]

4-5 cards sounds like a pain to manage but definitely can boost FICO and if you monitor your spending historically you can maximize rewards and cash back. Depending on your annual spend it could mean hundreds of dollars in free money left on the table now.

[HeavenOhio]

You don't have to worry about APR on a card that doesn't get used.

Provided that there isn't an annual fee, it's really good to keep your oldest card. In your case, your cards are so old that I'd try to keep all of them. I'd suggest charging something small on the Capital One card periodically, then paying it off as soon as the charge posts to your account.