Should I close my card account??

[Anonymous]

About 7 years ago I had a score in the low 600s after some foolish/irresponsible credit use. In an effort to improve my credit I got a capital one platinum secured card with a $2500 limit. About $2000 of that credit line is from deposits I sent to capital one so I’d have a higher and more useful credit limit. I have 6 full years of on-time payments on this account, and it’s now my oldest revolving account. Since then I’ve got my score up to a respectable 735. I’ve also got student loan accounts with all on-time payments, a mortgage with on-time payments for the life of the loan, (4 years), and a BoA credit card with on-time payments for the life of the card (about 3 years).

I recently inquired about a CLI on the cap one card and was denied because it’s a secured account. They were also unable/unwilling to convert the account to another card type.

I applied for and was approved for a quicksilver card with a 3k limit and an AMEX with an 8k limit. I also got a CLI on the BoA card from 2k to 5k all this past month.

At this point the cap one platinum card is pretty useless since I can’t grow the CLI, plus no rewards/points. I’d like to close out this secured account and reclaim the 2k cash deposit. My concern is that closing out my oldest line of revolving credit will have a negative impact on my score. For the record I have no immediate need for the 2k in cash, but I could certainly put it to good use.

What do you all think the impact might be to my score and overall credit worthiness? Should I close it out, or wait for my next oldest account to mature for another year?

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:
About 7 years ago I had a score in the low 600s after some foolish/irresponsible credit use. In an effort to improve my credit I got a capital one platinum secured card with a $2500 limit. About $2000 of that credit line is from deposits I sent to capital one so I’d have a higher and more useful credit limit. I have 6 full years of on-time payments on this account, and it’s now my oldest revolving account. Since then I’ve got my score up to a respectable 735. I’ve also got student loan accounts with all on-time payments, a mortgage with on-time payments for the life of the loan, (4 years), and a BoA credit card with on-time payments for the life of the card (about 3 years).

I recently inquired about a CLI on the cap one card and was denied because it’s a secured account. They were also unable/unwilling to convert the account to another card type.

I applied for and was approved for a quicksilver card with a 3k limit and an AMEX with an 8k limit. I also got a CLI on the BoA card from 2k to 5k all this past month.

At this point the cap one platinum card is pretty useless since I can’t grow the CLI, plus no rewards/points. I’d like to close out this secured account and reclaim the 2k cash deposit. My concern is that closing out my oldest line of revolving credit will have a negative impact on my score. For the record I have no immediate need for the 2k in cash, but I could certainly put it to good use.

What do you all think the impact might be to my score and overall credit worthiness? Should I close it out, or wait for my next oldest account to mature for another year?

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Unless it is having a significant effect on your revolving utilization, closing it will have no effect at all until it drops from your reports, which will probably be many years down the road.

[Anonymous]

I would [again] attempt to unsecure the card.  Maybe frontline CS can't get it done and you should speak to someone higher up.  I'm not saying it absolutely can be done, but I read tons of posts on this forum of members with only (say) 6-12 months of perfect secured Platinum history getting their cards unsecured, so I'd think yours would be a prime candidate to do so.  If for some reason you can't unsecure it, is it possible to reduce it down to a smaller amount... perhaps $500 or $300 for example?  This way you could SD the card and keep it alive without having a few thousand dollars tied up in it.  Just a thought.  Since you have limited revolving history, I'd personally try to keep it open, even if it means jumping through a couple of hoops to make that happen.  But, to answer your original question, closing it would have no immediate negative impact on your scores.