Close a few Cards?

[Kinglord]

As I have now improved my credit, I dont really see the need to have these subprime cards like Merrick and Mission lane.  They are both 1 year old.  How bad, if at all would it be to close them? 

Mission lane has no annual fee, but Merrick does.

[RSX]

It won't be bad at all

close em

focus on the ones you actually like/use

too many can be tough to handle and tough to put enough 'spend' on each 

if it will raise your overall utilization above 9% , then close just the one with the annual fee and wait on the other one, until you drop below 9%

[Anonymous]

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@Kinglord wrote:

As I have now improved my credit, I dont really see the need to have these subprime cards like Merrick and Mission lane.  They are both 1 year old.  How bad, if at all would it be to close them? 

Mission lane has no annual fee, but Merrick does.

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I would suggest closing a Merrick card.
Not worth an annual fee, but many thanks to them if they played a part in your rebuild.

I would suggest keeping the Mission Lane card to help utilization if there is no annual fee.
Your profile lists 8.9% utilization.

That is one of the thresholds that costs some points.

Not huge points but some points... actual impact will be profile dependent.

[RSX]

Since you are at 8.9%, what are the CL's of these 2 cards?

if $750 or lower (each) than than they won't have a big impact on your overall utilization 

and you can use the money saved from the AF, to pay down something else.  

[Anonymous]

The biggest thing about closing cards before a year is the optics of it from the lender's perspective. If it's a lender with whom you want future business, keep it at least a year. If you don't care and don't plan on anything else with them, then close it and move on regardless of age.

[SecretAzure]

I'm just going to piggyback off this thread as I'm in a similar mindset as OP (as opposed to starting a whole other thread).

It has been over 3 years since I closed my secured Crapital One card. I am now feeling comfortable enough that closing my Synch/Texaco card wouldn't be such a bad idea. This is my oldest active account at the moment but it doesn't suite my spend and it's ultimately a waste. Especially since they just CLD me to $2500 from $10K. This is the second CLD this card has gotten in 2 years. I have 81K in total credit lines availible so this would be a drop in the bucket and not really affect my util. This will bring me down to 6 cards total (+Mortgage).

Should I close?

• If so, should I ask for a CLI so that my closed line appears larger?
• If I shouldn't close, should I wait for a better moment to do so?

[Anonymous]

I doubt a higher CL on a closed account will matter much or at all. If you don't need it, close it. Plain and simple.

[HeavenOhio]

Close them both. While I agree that it's a good idea to hang onto "good" cards for a year, that doesn't apply to starter cards. Unless the starter card is a no-fee card from a good bank, I'd close ASAP.

[Kinglord]

Thanks for all the input!

Both CLOSED!!! For good!

[AverageJoesCredit]

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@SecretAzure wrote:

I'm just going to piggyback off this thread as I'm in a similar mindset as OP (as opposed to starting a whole other thread).

It has been over 3 years since I closed my secured Crapital One card. I am now feeling comfortable enough that closing my Synch/Texaco card wouldn't be such a bad idea. This is my oldest active account at the moment but it doesn't suite my spend and it's ultimately a waste. Especially since they just CLD me to $2500 from $10K. This is the second CLD this card has gotten in 2 years. I have 81K in total credit lines availible so this would be a drop in the bucket and not really affect my util. This will bring me down to 6 cards total (+Mortgage).

Should I close?

• If so, should I ask for a CLI so that my closed line appears larger?
• If I shouldn't close, should I wait for a better moment to do so?

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Why would you ask for a cli, get it , then close? That makes no sense and it wont matter that your card had a 5k or 25k limit once closed imo.  My guess is an UW could care less the amount but maybe more so on why it was closed if they cared at all. Imo close a card if its useless or doesnt suit you but dont play cli games on a card that will be closed.