Closing an account with balance to avoid annual fee

[jthompson5254]

I have a $59 annual fee coming up on my BofA Mastercard. I have a balance on it and would like to close it to avoid the fee, would this effect my fico score alot? Should I just pay the $59?

[Anonymous]

Have you tried doing a product change to a no-fee card from BoA?

That's what I will be trying to do in May once my fee rears its ugly head.

[pizzadude]

Doing a PC is certainly a good idea.

But if do you end up closing the account, there will be no immediate damage to your FICO score ~ you would just keep paying it down.   However once the account is paid, the Credit Limit would become $0 and if you are carrying balances on other cards your overall utilization might increase, which could hurt your FICO score.

[Scene]

Just pay off the balance and when the payment posts, immediately call BoA and cancel that moneysucker. PC might be a good idea but lately it seems BoA has just been saying NO and would be a waste of a HP.

[jthompson5254]

Well, as suspected they said no to the product change, so I did close my account. The balance was too much to pay off but I'm not worried about the effect it will have on my FICO score when it gets paid off as its the last card I will pay off, I will just be making the minimum on the card. Focusing on the others.Thanks for the advice

[Anonymous]

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@jthompson5254 wrote:

I have a $59 annual fee coming up on my BofA Mastercard. I have a balance on it and would like to close it to avoid the fee, would this effect my fico score alot? Should I just pay the $59?

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Unless the closure affects your utilization.  It shouldn't have an impact on your score for 10 years at which point the account will fall of your report and affect your AAoA