Keep oldest Credit Card, or Credit Line?

[-RED]

My oldest Credit Card is with HSBC, however it is far from being my oldest reporting trade.

Can I close it without it hurting my scores? I have 4 CC's and only carry balances on two of them, however this card is never used, and is at a zero balance.

AF is 69 or something, but they waive it everytime I ask them to, except last year, because I forgot to call in.

[Anonymous]

---

@-RED wrote:

My oldest Credit Card is with HSBC, however it is far from being my oldest reporting trade.

Can I close it without it hurting my scores? I have 4 CC's and only carry balances on two of them, however this card is never used, and is at a zero balance.

AF is 69 or something, but they waive it everytime I ask them to, except last year, because I forgot to call in.

---

Is it in outstanding status?   What is CL on it?   It should be report for next 10 yrs (how does HSBC works?) and it should be fine ... IMO

That's so nice!    Q: Why you want to close this one if they wave the AF?  

If you close this one, you want to cut down to carry the balance on ONLY one out of three ccs with small util as possible.

[Walt_K]

If the only thing I was concerned about was the effect on age of accounts, if it were me, I would close it.  I wouldn't feel like bothering to call every year to get them to waive the fee.  If you're willing to keep calling, I'd do that and cancel it if they wouldn't waive the fee.  I wouldn't pay the fee to keep the account open. 

If you had other reasons, e.g., you needed the account for utilization purposes and you were needing to get your score just over a interest break threashhold for an auto loan or a mortgage app, then I would leave the card open until you got that taken care of.  $69 is a small amount of money compared to what you'd save over the life of a large loan if you got a better interest rate.  

Also, if you do close it, you're going to be carrying balances on 2 of 3 cards instead of 2 of 4.   You might ge tthe ding for too many accounts with balances if you're not already getting that.  As I understand it, that is a small ding, but something worth considering.  Maybe add a no fee card to replace it, or start letting only one account report a balance.