Closing Accounts

[Gritz78]

Hello Everyone!

I have been working the past 18 months to improve my DTI, payoff personal loans and credit cards and just recently closed on the purchase of a new home!

I currently have 17 open credit card tradelines ranging from small under $100 (7) lines to the largest of $6,900.  Would it be in any way advantageous to close out some of the duplicate company cards / smaller trade lines?

Home Depot	$300.00
Capital One Quicksilver	$500.00
Capital One Savor	$500.00
Target	$500.00
Best Buy Visa	$500.00
Capital One Venture	$750.00
Menards	$750.00
Paypal Credit	$1,200.00
Capital One	$1,150.00
Credit One Amex	$1,350.00
Credit One Visa	$1,500.00
Comenity Bank	$1,650.00
AMX Marriott	$1,750.00
PayPal Mastercard	$2,300.00
Kohls	$2,500.00
Discover Card	$2,900.00
Amex Gold	$6,900.00

[coldfusion]

Insofar as there being a big-picture long term benefit to credit scoring, not really.    If you don't have the time, energy,  or motivation to regularly keep track of 17 different open tradelines and make sure that every one of them sees some spend  at least every now and then - everyone has their own limit and there is no shortage of people who think that 17 is way more than they can or want to deal with -  then it can be worth it to thin out the herd if for no other reason than your own peace of mind.     I myself would not close a number of accounts all at once but instead would stagger the closures over a period of time.

[Kforce]

Agree with @coldfusion , close cards slowly, I usually do one every six months.

[Realist]

I think you may want to first identify your goals to hold credit.   What you have now, is yours to have, unless the bank wants to take back, in which they'll inform you to either act or they'll close the account.  

[TrapLine]

As is mentioned in this thread, a person has to decide what works best for them.

In my case I have closed several accounts spread over many years so as to not upset the credit game. The one thing that has affected my scoring is being sure to have one account active with age on it. Closing and old account usually will stay in the credit bureau for ten years. "Usually" is the operative.

First National Bank of Omaha (FNBO) has seen fit to delete themselves out after two or three years and being older, did cause a long term score reduction.

May not be a big thing but, be aware it can happen.

[SouthJamaica]

I don't know of any scoring benefit to closing accounts.

But if there are any annual fees you might want to get rid of those accounts.

Or if the work of monitoring accounts is burdensome, you might want to drop some.

[NoMoreE46]

Congrats on the home.  Welcome to the forums.

Without knowing anything else, I would close both Credit One cards and the Comenity.  
It would be helpful if you

list the typical balances on each of the TL and the purpose of the TL.

[Gritz78]

The original purpose of each was to rebuild credit and lower utilization.  All accounts are now paid in full and my intention is to use AMX for everday expenses and pay off each month.

[NoMoreE46]

Excellent on the zero carry over balances and PIF.

Cards begotten were to pad UTI and not for  any  specific rewards right now.

Again, I would kill the Credit One and Comenity cards for your purge.

With the acquisition of Discover by Capitol One, I would sit  on  all six cards and see what evolves.

Try  a CLI on the HD card which maybe especially handy now.  

.

[coldfusion]

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@NoMoreE46 wrote:

Try  a CLI on the HD card which maybe especially handy now.  

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Just so that they understand that a CLI request on the Home Depot card will cost them an inquiry.