I'm doing some pre-retirement clean-up and, for me, less is more.
Aside from
- the potential impact on aggregate utilization
and - reducing the total number of accounts to offset reporting cards (I'm thinking 1:3 for the FICO 8 score)
are there any potential downsides to closing credit cards?
(Assuming that the cards linger on my report for a decade, I don't see AAoA (currently ~6.5years, depending on the bureau) as an issue.)
@expatCanuck wrote:I'm doing some pre-retirement clean-up and, for me, less is more.
Aside from
- the potential impact on aggregate utilization
and- reducing the total number of accounts to offset reporting cards (I'm thinking 1:3 for the FICO 8 score)
are there any potential downsides to closing credit cards?
(Assuming that the cards linger on my report for a decade, I don't see AAoA (currently ~6.5years, depending on the bureau) as an issue.)
No, aside from those, I do not know of any downside to closing them.
They don't always linger in your reports for a decade, though. I once had 5 closed accounts dropped by Equifax only a year or two after closure, thus reducing my EQ AAoA by 6 months. Conversely, they sometimes linger for a lot more than 10 years.
@SouthJamaica
Thanks for the reminder. I do recall reading that.
And I learned today that AAoA can make a big difference above 800.
EQ FICO8 is now 848 (a personal best), and the only meaningful difference between it and EX (821) is the 3-month AAoA difference (7y1m vs 6y10m).
@expatCanuck wrote:@SouthJamaica
Thanks for that reminder. I do recall reading that.
And I learned today that AAoA can make a big difference above 800.
EQ FICO8 is now 848 (a personal best), and the only meaningful difference between it and EX (821) is the 3-month AAoA difference (7y1m vs 6y10m).
Actually it's possible that the reason for the big difference is that 7 years appears to be a major threshold.
