Closing a Card and Using an Old Card

[Anonymous]

Hi, I have two questions.

I would like to close an account I've had since 1995.  I have a new card from BoA and I want to combine the two cards.  They will do this for me and combine the available credit on the two cards onto the single card so my utilization factor shouldn't change.  But, eventually that 1995 card will drop off.  I have a high credit score so would this be a bad thing to do?

Question 2 - I have a card that I got in 1974.  It is the 2nd oldest card that I have.  Right now it is showing as inactive.  Should I use it once to get it back to active?  I last used in 2003.  Will the cc company eventually close it?  I'd hate to lose my credit history going back that far.  I lost a good portion of history when I got divorced and all the accounts were closed.  So I have the two cards from the 1970's and then the next card is from 1995 (not the one I want to close, and it is inactive also.

Thanks,

[shyboy]

well for your first question i would combine both BOA accounts and ask if i can keep the oldest history. (Thats what i did with capital one)

[shyboy]

Well for your second question, it might be to late to reopen the account cause it might be closed already. it wouldn't hurt to call and ask.

[Anonymous]

New to old

[Anonymous]

They said they wouldn't transfer the history to the new card, it would have an open date of 2008.  The old card would still be there for probably 10 years, but just closed.

[Anonymous]

Even with old cards showing from the 70's that 1995 card is still VERY IMPORTANT to remain active on your credit. You can move credit lines around between cards from the same bank when ever you want but I would never cancel the older cards. Cancel new cards if you want to but never anything that old unless you have lots of them. Even then everyone would recommend just putting them in the sock drawer and not canceling.

YES if you have inactive cards showing a small purchase to bring them back if possible is a very good idea. Call the companies to reactivate if needed. They can cancel them if not used. Usually I have seen retail cards go inactive and they just leave them on the credit reports. Not sure how many years they let them go inactive before they close them. Thats up to each lender. But I'd do a small charge every year or so to keep them active on retail cards and every 6 months on credit cards.