Easy ways to keep a CC active & avoid closure or CLD

[DaveInAZ]

I regularly see posts here about a credit card being closed for inactivity or, with the nicer CCs, a warning of closure if no use in X amount of time. If a CC is worth keeping for it's credit limit or other reason it's pretty easy to keep it active with minor charges, and possibly avoid a CLD.

If you have a Unlimited Mobile phone plan for $80+ per month you probably don't want to waste that on a low/no rewards sock drawer CC, but many of us of inexpensive subs that can easily keep a card active. I once keep a no fee Merrick bank card w/$3100 CL alive for several years just giving it my $7 monthly Netflix sub before I finally closed it. I now have a Disney+ streaming sub for $7.99, that goes to my worthless Barclays Uber card, "worthless" except for it's $6100 CL. While my Sears MC had nice 12 month 0% deferred interest offers last year after Covid19 those offers stopped and the current 20x TU point offers don't interest me, so it gets my $9.99 Experian monthly sub.

And streaming movie rentals are a great thing to spread around onto seldom used cards. I'm currently buying Season 3 of Kevin Costner's Yellowstone TV series on Google Play. It cost a bit more to buy each episode separately then buy the whole season, but buying each episode I have it charged to my PayPal account. That way I just go into my PayPal account and change which card the next $3.17 episode gets charged to, I've spread it around to 5 cards from Cap One, Citi, Barclays & First Bankcard.

The more . . . "established" CC issuers such as Amex, Chase, Citi, Cap One have software that monitor the amount of charges to your card, so small subscriptions/rentals may not save you from a CLD, especially in the current economic conditions, but at least they'll save you from an inactivity negative. And in my experience less vigilant CC issuers such as Barclays and Synchrony just need and occasional charge to keep them happy. Yes, there have been posts about Synchrony CLDs & even closures, but those often seem to be little or unused store cards. Store cards are the hardest cards to keep active unless you actually shop there regularly. So I only have 2 store cards - Walmart, where I shop pretty much weekly, and Lowes. My Lowes card has a $15k CL and I watch it nervously. While I own my home and have made large purchases in the past with deferred interest plans, for the past couple years I haven't needed any major purchases so I stop by Lowes every 3-4 months and buy a house plant /other small purchase, so far it's worked.

I hope others post with their ideas/experiences.

[randomguy1]

Amazon reloads for me personally. You can charge 50 cents and upwards. I do this manually, it might not be ideal for some, but it works when I don't have a monthly subscription to spread the love to.

[DaveInAZ]

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@randomguy1 wrote:

Amazon reloads for me personally. You can charge 50 cents and upwards. I do this manually, it might not be ideal for some, but it works when I don't have a monthly subscription to spread the love to.

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Ah yes, I forgot that one! Amazon gift card reloads work great, and I've read some cards forgive/charge off charges under $1. While I'm pretty frugal that doesn't appeal to me, but if you regularly shop Amazon, which I don't, that's a great way to keep a card active for a small charge you'll eventually use for something.

[Anonymous]

My garbage CapOne would get nothing at all if I didn't have my daughter use her AU card for coffees at Dunkin when she goes out with friends. Each month I'll throw a few purchases on my Delta and Hilton cards to the tune of $60 or so each within a week of statement cut, then pay them off the next week. Those aren't garbage cards but I have zero use for air and hotel spending these days so I keep them fed with lunches here and there or a grocery buy. Their intended uses will return and they'll be waiting.

[Anonymous]

Every few months I pull my cards out and do Amazon reloads. Easy way for me to keep them all active. 

As for CLDs, Capital One slashed my card that I use more often while leaving the larger limit on a card I never use intact. 

I am not really worried about CLDs. I have core cards that I use and those are the ones I care about. The rest make up part of an absurd amount of padding that I don't actually need. Lenders are free to slash - just gives me an excuse to close some cards. 

[blindambition]

I regularly rotate cards according to their categories. I have two cards I keep for age, both have a monthly sub. That way I don't really have to think about them.
CLD are harder to predict. Lenders are currently spooked. Sometimes the reason is legitimate, other times it seems to just be a preemptive risk management measure.

[Anonymous]

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@randomguy1 wrote:

Amazon reloads for me personally. You can charge 50 cents and upwards. I do this manually, it might not be ideal for some, but it works when I don't have a monthly subscription to spread the love to.

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And there is an auto-reload feature so you can reload every month (or whenever) making it even easier.

OT: but while checking that, I finally realized that the 2% bonus for using a bank account is driven by a debit card.   Since I use Amazon reloads to meet minimum debit card transactions for reward checking, that's an extra 2%....

Which on my usage, comes to a FREE 90c per year!

[Ragdollkitty]

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@randomguy1 wrote:

Amazon reloads for me personally. You can charge 50 cents and upwards. I do this manually, it might not be ideal for some, but it works when I don't have a monthly subscription to spread the love to.

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Ive been doing this since I learned about the 50 cent minimum load on Amazon.

I still wonder if I should charge over the small balance write off amount ($1 or more on some cards) to actually have a new payment show. I'm not sure if it makes a difference to the banks if your activity is small enough for write off or not.

Someone in a thread on here said all they've charged on one card is small balance write off amounts every month and their card is still active so I guess that's a data point that the 50 cent minimum is enough.

I mostly do 50 cent charges every 3-6 months. I may just do over the small balance write off amount once a year to update "Date of last payment" even though I have no evidence that it does anything. It just looks better to me when I review reports.

[Anonymous]

I always suggest just taking all of your SD cards to anywhere with a self checkout once every 3-6 months... a place like the grocery store, Home Depot, Target, wherever.  Take out each SD card at the self checkout and swipe it.  It will bring up your total... "$150, correct?" and you hit "no" and type in $3.00 or whatever.  Next card, repeat the process until you're done with all of the cards getting a minor swipe.  Finish off the remaining $140 or whatever on your grocery/HD/Target card or whatever best suits that spend. 

[sladesurfer]

Mobile Wallet for me. Half of my card apple watch and other half on my iphone...Use it at my works Vending machines