What to do with amex cards that are backdated

[darkfrosty]

I have two other cards that arent in my sig that i used for balance transfers that i will cancel once im done with them .. i guess ill just keep both the amexs even though i dont use either anymore ugh 

why should i keep them ? what is the huge hit i will take ?

[lg8302ch]

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@darkfrosty wrote:

I have two other cards that arent in my sig that i used for balance transfers that i will cancel once im done with them .. i guess ill just keep both the amexs even though i dont use either anymore ugh 

why should i keep them ? what is the huge hit i will take ?

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Keep the ED to save / keep the MR points alive but there is no reason to keep PRG and pay the AF if you do not use it any longer.  Closed cards stay on reports for another 10 years approximately so you will not see any impact on the AAoA side immediately and in 10 years you have made up for that easily.  As mentioned above there is no need to have 10+ years to reach 800+ scores.  PRG is a charge card and therefore it will not even impact utilization if you close it.  So I would say if you do not use it anymore close it !

[SouthJamaica]

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@darkfrosty wrote:

I have two other cards that arent in my sig that i used for balance transfers that i will cancel once im done with them .. i guess ill just keep both the amexs even though i dont use either anymore ugh 

why should i keep them ? what is the huge hit i will take ?

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No one can tell you how much of a hit you will take. Why don't you go ahead, cancel them, and then report back to us?

[Anonymous]

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

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@darkfrosty wrote:

I have two other cards that arent in my sig that i used for balance transfers that i will cancel once im done with them .. i guess ill just keep both the amexs even though i dont use either anymore ugh 

why should i keep them ? what is the huge hit i will take ?

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No one can tell you how much of a hit you will take. Why don't you go ahead, cancel them, and then report back to us?

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Because the hit wont happen for about 10 years?   Even if you are still reading, it's possible that you might have forgotten or even lost interest.

To me, this is pretty much a no-brainer.   The OPs scores are decent and history is fine and closing a charge card has no util impact so just a potential long term unknowable impact (depeinding on scoring types used then plus whatever happens to OPs credt record to that point, and maybe which worthy wins the presidential election in 2016, 2020 and 2024!)

If the PRG fee is trivial for the OP, then maybe OK, but since the question is asked it's not absolutely trivial, OP says no benefit, so really no reason to keep.

[SouthJamaica]

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@darkfrosty wrote:

Hmm now im not sure what to do. I had called amex asking when my annual fee was going to hit and they told me not until next year because i downgraded from platinum to PRG .. but now I just got notified that $195 fee just hit .. so im thinking i will cancel it. I dont use it much at all to cover that fee. Sucks I will lose that card that is backdated to 99. Still will have my ED which is backdated.

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Can't you downgrade it again?

[darkfrosty]

to green but still a $95 off to sock drawer it 

[kdm31091]

I think generally people worry too much about closing accounts. Backdated or not, you still are going to take ZERO hit for the next ten years, in terms of AAOA.

Yes, ten years from now, the account will fall off and potentially knock your AAOA down some (although your other acounts will be 10 years older, too). However, AAOA, while important, is only 15% of scoring. So it's not like your score will plummet from 800 to 500 because of something like this.

Beyond that, the cards are actually costing you money, so year over year, you are paying to prevent a potentially small score impact an entire decade from now. A decade. Think about where you were in March 2006. Probably feels like forever ago, right? Because it was! 10 years is a long time in the future to be worrying about, IMO. You may not even care much about this sort of thing 10 years from now. Interest in "hobbies" like credit card rewards tends to wax and wane over time.

I've always just closed accounts pretty much when I felt like it and to date, no major score changes because of it.

Also, on the first page, the note about the accounts no longer aging is incorrect. They will age, even if closed, for the next 10 years.

[SouthJamaica]

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@kdm31091 wrote:

I think generally people worry too much about closing accounts. Backdated or not, you still are going to take ZERO hit for the next ten years, in terms of AAOA.

Yes, ten years from now, the account will fall off and potentially knock your AAOA down some (although your other acounts will be 10 years older, too). However, AAOA, while important, is only 15% of scoring. So it's not like your score will plummet from 800 to 500 because of something like this.

Beyond that, the cards are actually costing you money, so year over year, you are paying to prevent a potentially small score impact an entire decade from now. A decade. Think about where you were in March 2006. Probably feels like forever ago, right? Because it was! 10 years is a long time in the future to be worrying about, IMO. You may not even care much about this sort of thing 10 years from now. Interest in "hobbies" like credit card rewards tends to wax and wane over time.

I've always just closed accounts pretty much when I felt like it and to date, no major score changes because of it.

Also, on the first page, the note about the accounts no longer aging is incorrect. They will age, even if closed, for the next 10 years.

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Yeah but apart from average age, don't they also take into account the age of your oldest account? I believe these are reporting as his oldest accounts.

[kdm31091]

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

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@kdm31091 wrote:

I think generally people worry too much about closing accounts. Backdated or not, you still are going to take ZERO hit for the next ten years, in terms of AAOA.

Yes, ten years from now, the account will fall off and potentially knock your AAOA down some (although your other acounts will be 10 years older, too). However, AAOA, while important, is only 15% of scoring. So it's not like your score will plummet from 800 to 500 because of something like this.

Beyond that, the cards are actually costing you money, so year over year, you are paying to prevent a potentially small score impact an entire decade from now. A decade. Think about where you were in March 2006. Probably feels like forever ago, right? Because it was! 10 years is a long time in the future to be worrying about, IMO. You may not even care much about this sort of thing 10 years from now. Interest in "hobbies" like credit card rewards tends to wax and wane over time.

I've always just closed accounts pretty much when I felt like it and to date, no major score changes because of it.

Also, on the first page, the note about the accounts no longer aging is incorrect. They will age, even if closed, for the next 10 years.

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Yeah but apart from average age, don't they also take into account the age of your oldest account? I believe these are reporting as his oldest accounts.

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That is true. I just don't think it's a reason to keep accounts (that you have to pay for) indefinitely. YMMV

[Anonymous]

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@kdm31091 wrote:

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

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@kdm31091 wrote:

I think generally people worry too much about closing accounts. Backdated or not, you still are going to take ZERO hit for the next ten years, in terms of AAOA.

Yes, ten years from now, the account will fall off and potentially knock your AAOA down some (although your other acounts will be 10 years older, too). However, AAOA, while important, is only 15% of scoring. So it's not like your score will plummet from 800 to 500 because of something like this.

Beyond that, the cards are actually costing you money, so year over year, you are paying to prevent a potentially small score impact an entire decade from now. A decade. Think about where you were in March 2006. Probably feels like forever ago, right? Because it was! 10 years is a long time in the future to be worrying about, IMO. You may not even care much about this sort of thing 10 years from now. Interest in "hobbies" like credit card rewards tends to wax and wane over time.

I've always just closed accounts pretty much when I felt like it and to date, no major score changes because of it.

Also, on the first page, the note about the accounts no longer aging is incorrect. They will age, even if closed, for the next 10 years.

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Yeah but apart from average age, don't they also take into account the age of your oldest account? I believe these are reporting as his oldest accounts.

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That is true. I just don't think it's a reason to keep accounts (that you have to pay for) indefinitely. YMMV

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In this case, if the OP kept the ED open (with no fee) that is also the same age so no impact on oldest card age.

But as KDM says, probably not a good reason to keep paying anyway.   In my far-from-humble opinion, here there is way too much emphasis on score without enough data to know how to value it.    So we see people proposing things like getting installment accounts to boost scores.   And while they do for many profiles, there is also some cost involved.   Worth it?   Who knows!   What is say 20 points worth today, or over the next few months etc.  It obviously depends on way too many factors, if you are getting a mortgage in the next few months AND you are borderline for a rate, it may well be worth paying quite a bit to get 20 points increase somehow, but even in that situation it is hard to know the precise score impact on the mortgage scores of all three agencies for a proposed change.    And it's much less likely say that increasing your score by X will allow you to get credit card Y which will be so good for you in rewards and benefits it's worth paying $Z to increase the score.   (That analysis can and should be done, rather than "It looks so cool" type analysis!)

And for paying, year after year, AF on unwanted cards to protect "oldest card" or AAoA is even more problematic.   The costs mount up.  It's not so clear the benefits do.