Cutting down on number of accounts

[NYC_Fella]

I got rid of all my junk cards last year and now have a fairly good lineup. Here it is:

WF $25,000

Amex BCP $15,000

Discover $12,000

Barclays Silver Aviator $11,000

Venmo $10,000

Apple $8,750

PenFed $7,500

Bob's Furniture (WF) $5,000

Amex Platinum NPSL (POT $15,000)

The total is $94,250 excluding the Amex Platinum. I also have a new auto lease in the amount of ~$18,000.

While I charge around $10K/month, almost all of it is on the Amex Platinum since I travel a lot and value the Amex MR points. I use the Amex BCP for groceries for the 6% off. The other cards get almost no usage. For AZEO purposes, I carry a small interest-free balance on Bob's Furniture (they always have interest-free promos and I'm always buying something or other from there); all the other revolving cards are PIF before their respective statement dates and show zero balances.

Basically, I have a lot of cards that I don't use and I'm thinking that I'd like to dump Discover, Venmo, Apple, and PenFed. This would leave me with just 4 revolving accounts. Do the experts here see any downside to my doing that?

For context, my FICO 8 scores are all just above 700, and will probably not go much higher until my BK7 falls off in about 3 years. That's the only baddie in my file.

Thanks in advance!

[SouthJamaica]

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@NYC_Fella wrote:

I got rid of all my junk cards last year and now have a fairly good lineup. Here it is:

WF $25,000

Amex BCP $15,000

Discover $12,000

Barclays Silver Aviator $11,000

Venmo $10,000

Apple $8,750

PenFed $7,500

Bob's Furniture (WF) $5,000

Amex Platinum NPSL (POT $15,000)

The total is $94,250 excluding the Amex Platinum. I also have a new auto lease in the amount of ~$18,000.

While I charge around $10K/month, almost all of it is on the Amex Platinum since I travel a lot and value the Amex MR points. I use the Amex BCP for groceries for the 6% off. The other cards get almost no usage. For AZEO purposes, I carry a small interest-free balance on Bob's Furniture (they always have interest-free promos and I'm always buying something or other from there); all the other revolving cards are PIF before their respective statement dates and show zero balances.

Basically, I have a lot of cards that I don't use and I'm thinking that I'd like to dump Discover, Venmo, Apple, and PenFed. This would leave me with just 4 revolving accounts. Do the experts here see any downside to my doing that?

For context, my FICO 8 scores are all just above 700, and will probably not go much higher until my BK7 falls off in about 3 years. That's the only baddie in my file.

Thanks in advance!

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I don't consider myself an expert but my advice would be to proceed slowly, if at all.  As long as your utilization is low, it probably won't affect your scores much, except that you'd be losing some of those nice zero balance reports.  But after putting together a nice lineup like that, I would be reluctant to start dumping things. 

PS You might want to ask the moderators to move this post to "Credit Cards".

[simplynoir]

I don't see any problem with your proposed action here. The closed accounts will still report for aging purposes for up to 7-10 years with the bureaus, less cards to keep track and lessens fraud risk, and you simplify your portfolio to suit your spending needs. Some would counter to keep the cards open for utilization purposes (and maybe additional aging) but you PIF even with a lot of spend so that shouldn't be a concern for you

[Revelate]

If you're playing optimization games I like to have at least 5 revolvers as that does have some wiggle room to let two balances report.

That said, AZEO is AZEO and if you righteously clean up for that, there's no issue with your plan.  I'm just letting lenders naturally close on me over time rather than aggressively going after closures, I still have 14 open personal and 2 business, I could cut probably 10 personal and 1 business and be fine without loss of rewards even.

I'm going to be entering a phase of ruthlessly cutting expenses, when that happens I may get more aggressive with some closures cause I do have a few AFs I'm paying currently on cards that will no longer be used much.  It makes little sense to me personally to close $0 AF cards directly.

[NYC_Fella]

Thanks all for the responses. I think I will just leave the cards in the SD. If and when they get closed by the issuers, so be it. I just don't have the time or patience to keep them active with occasional purchases. None of my closure candidates has an AF, so there's no risk of missing a payment once they're safely put away.

[Bill77]

I'm in the it's OK to cancel camp.  They will still age for 10 years after canceling so I don't think you will hurt your scores.  I personally would only keep the Venmo card because it's a painless way to fill in gaps in other cards @ 3% cash back.

[Credit17]

I'm not an expert but I'm wondering if that Bob's card can be used as the one in AZEO.   You may want to have a small statement balance hit on the Barclays (or WF $25k) card next month and see what happens with your score.  

[NYC_Fella]

Good point, worth doing the experiment.

[Anonymous]

Barclays Aviator Silver is like 200 AF, no? Did u downgrade to no AF one(white?)

[NYC_Fella]

@Anonymous wrote:

Barclays Aviator Silver is like 200 AF, no? Did u downgrade to no AF one(white?)

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You are correct; my memory is failing me. The Barclays card does have a $195 AF.