@kerplunk wrote:
I have 850 FICO 8s across the board, currently. Age is late 30s.
Credit cards currently active (Bank, Product, Age, Credit Line):
- Chase, Freedom Unlimited, 20 years, $40K
- Chase, Freedom Flex, 20 years, $20K
- Citi, Custom Cash, 7 years, $33K
- Discover, it, 19 years, $40K
- NFCU, Flagship Rewards, 5 years, $80K
- US Bank, Cash+, 21 years, $25K
I am thinking about closing Chase Freedom Flex due to redundancy. It was formerly a Providian (then Washington Mutual) account that Chase acquired. I know it'll stay on my credit history for 10 years, but I am thinking longer-term. I don't use the card at all, and I could move the $20K credit line to my other Chase card (I assume, anyway).
If you were me, would you keep the card active or close the account?
There's zero reason to close the account other than to manage a smaller footprint of cards. If you take no action on it ever, they may close it out on you anyways - some month or year - so long as you don't care either way. Until then, the account ages without forceful elimination - no annual fee attached. I would speculate you find yourself in a certain situation where that special 850 score prevents you from acting all that much with your credit. It's a psychological threshold few ever obtain, and certain conditions required to maintain. I say this as a benevolent comment speculating on your situation, as reaching 850 is a special kind of an awesome marker.
This is going to be highly specific to you and what you want. Do you plan to acquire more credit? Do you plan to acquire welcome bonuses? Do you plan to use your score towards new loans? It's obvious that credit utilization no longer matters in your scenario, as this is an excellent position to be in. Some people have access to too much credit in life, credit they'll never utilize. I also know this issue very well, and play with credit as a play toy. I abuse welcome offers, and vacation yearly for free on the backs of instituations. Why pay when they offer it so freely? Because I do this, I won't achieve the coveted 850 score, I linger as high as 844. But, the few points I willfully choose to lose, more than makes up for the free value stuff I receive in return. We just returned from an excellent vacation two weeks ago, base price was a solid $1500 for the hotel alone - free with points. The question is, what is important to you? That's not something we can answer for you. You know you, and we don't. When I returned from our vacation, I applied and received another card welcome offer that granted about 6-8 nights to a prestigous hotel line. On top of our points that already exist across other lines. We're realistically booked through 2030. It's stupid how easy this stuff is. We have another vacation booked in a month or two, and have so many points on one card, we booked two rooms on the points alone to accomodate another couple. Haha, stupid.
What I believe I know and read, and someone may be able to better correct me, is that Chase may have an upper limit in how much credit they will extend as a cap. If you transfer this line to your other, that puts you at about 60k I think I read. Again I may be wrong on this, but I thought I read something where Chase caps many people at about 100k in credit total, among all accounts. With that said, what is your goal? Do you want welcome bonuses? Are you good with only one or two Chase accounts as you approach that "potential" cap? Maybe it's not a 100k total, but I don't know their formula either. I'm in a position where I need to consider reducing my limits possibly. Each ""welcome bonus" credit application is tossing 30k-40k at P1 and P2, and for this to keep working, we need to maintain a reasonable level of credit that doesn't red line with their system - and produce an auto reject. It's already enough with the 5-24 nonsense, that we have to bounce around with other lines while in the gardening phase, all strategically planned.
I hold the same cards you hold with Chase, and I don't use them. After all these years, they still haven't closed them on me. Chase is the gift horse that keeps on giving. Might I suggest taking up their $900 bank welcome offer? P1 and P2 can pull in $1800 in mere months. Close the accounts, and reset for 24 months later.
That's my mindset. Enjoying the opportunity these institutions willfully provide to us. I'm not opposed to reducing or culling certain cards, but when it comes to accounts with age like those, never. Just stash it away in my opinion. Let them decide for you on whatever timeline they want to take it from you - if you really don't want it.
$XXX,XXX in credit lines.
Multiple months in free credit reward vacations.
$X,XXX in bank rewards in only 12 months.
I like FREE...
800+ FICO.
Making all numbers dance on a financial ledger.
Abuse that score responsibility.
Take nothing I say as financial advice. DYODD.
