open credit cards

[Anonymous]

if i have credit cards with no or small balance on them if i choose to close them with my score go up 3 cards i do not use at all and have not used for a while they did lower my avalable creidt on the cards should i just close the cardat my request?

[Anonymous]

now that they are open it is generally best not to close the cards.  Don't keep a balance on them, but don't close them.  The exception could be if you have a bunch of credit cards then it could be a good idea for the long term credit score if you closed a newer one, but never close your old cards.  I'm not sure it would ever be a good idea to close a card unless it is costing you an annual fee or something.

[Tuscani]

The only area of scoring where closing an account can hurt you is in the revolving utilization calculations. While a closed revolving account with a balance is included in utilization, a closed account with a zero balance is not.
 
In the area of length of credit history, closed accounts are treated no differently than open accounts.  That is, the length of history on a closed acct still gets counted right along with the rest of the closed account's history.  In fact, the length of credit history gets counted for every trade line on your report, regardless.

So, the only harm by closing a revolving account is to the utilization percentage, while, in the long run, a closed account will be removed from your credit file after 10 years, which could lower your score at that time due to the loss of that history.