Question on Closing HSBC/Orchard Cards

[Red1Blue]

I have 1 HSBC / 1 Orchard Card. Each with $400 CL and $35 AF that are about 8 months old in age. I am thinking of closing those 2 cards and get 2 new Secured Credit Cards each with $5K CL. If I were to do this what will be my score? Will I see a score drop due to 2 new cards or will the new High CL limits would help me boost the score. I am not sure how generous HSBC with CLI. I am not sure if I want to keep paying the AF for no reason. Any suggestions as to what I should do?

[TULO30]

You will more than likely see a drop in your score because you are decreasing your amount of available credit.  However, you have very small cl so the decrease shouldn't be that much...just curious...why do you want to close the cards?  The more credit you have available the better your score.  Of course it is best not to have too many credit cards, but in general you want to keep a good balance in order to keep your credit score high.

[Anonymous]

TULO30 wrote:

You will more than likely see a drop in your score because you are decreasing your amount of available credit.  However, you have very small cl so the decrease shouldn't be that much...just curious...why do you want to close the cards?  The more credit you have available the better your score.  Of course it is best not to have too many credit cards, but in general you want to keep a good balance in order to keep your credit score high.

OP said they have AF's- thats why they want  to close the cards.

Message Edited by netpanther on 12-02-2007 04:14 PM

[Anonymous]

Get your new cards and sock drawer the other 2 until the AF is ready to bill (close right after month 11 reports) - you have already paid the fee for the year so keep it open until then....

[Anonymous]

I agree I would close them once notified that it is time for the AF to bill.  With those limits and your new limitsit shouldn't hurt your score much,  Jsut remember to kwep it down between now and then,

[SmartCookie]

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concorduser wrote:

I have 1 HSBC / 1 Orchard Card. Each with $400 CL and $35 AF that are about 8 months old in age. I am thinking of closing those 2 cards and get 2 new Secured Credit Cards each with $5K CL. If I were to do this what will be my score? Will I see a score drop due to 2 new cards or will the new High CL limits would help me boost the score. I am not sure how generous HSBC with CLI. I am not sure if I want to keep paying the AF for no reason. Any suggestions as to what I should do?

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Just in case you didn't know... some Orchard and HSBC cards are combinable... so if yours are that would reduce 1 fee when the time comes next year.  I'd read up on how both deal with CLI requests to see if you can max your CL in the meantime before you combine... maybe keep it for 1 more year especially if they will waive the AF on the then only open card. 

As far as score with 2 new cc's it depends on how many hard INQs you are adding to when you app and how much the new CLs increase your UTI, new average age etc among other things.  I can't imagine how your scores would go down though.

Are you done with all of your repair?  If you can't yet get any other non-secured cards, make sure the ones you get will convert to non-secured and keep your age with no issue... like BoA for instance.

[Red1Blue]

Thank you very much for input from all of you. I travel quite a bit for business and I would like to keep decent credit limits that is the reason to go with Secured card. I am tired of small CL Tradelines and AF. I do have to still clean up some more baddies on the CR and working on it. Hopefully in the next 6 months I should have my CR cleanedup.