About Credit Cards & Loans

3 Responses to “Should I Close A Credit Card And Open Another To Maximize Points?”

1. Judy on February 7th, 2010 at 3:53 am

   Stop!
   Closing an old credit card can hurt your rating in 2 ways.
   1. You could be closing your oldest credit card. Length of credit history is 15% of your fico.
   2. You will be reducing the overall available limits you have on all your cards combined.
   A number creditors look at.
   If the card carries no annual fee – just put it away in a file and forget about it.
   As long as you have good credit – it will not close.
   Forget the people that tell you to use it every 6 months.
   Banks only close cards for those with bad credit ratings – which you will never have if you pay in full.
   I’ve had a discover unused for 10 years.
   The secret to top scores – is to pay in full each month – congrats on doing that.
   Sign up for you other card.
   You can have a 40 page report (as I do) and still maintain top credit scores – just don’t ever carry a balance.
   /

2. Teresa on February 7th, 2010 at 10:46 am

   you have several questions here so let me try and get to all of them.
   Closing your card will ding your credit because you will have less overall credit amount available and that is part of what your credit score is based on. If you don’t already have a lot of cards and you really like the reward feature then just apply for another card and use that for the rewards. Just in general, credit card companies are really tightening up so it might have a higher interest rate (but this might not worry you since you already pay off your card monthly).
   Give Citibank a call regarding your last question. I actually just signed up for that but haven’t used it yet.
   As an extra note, if you want to boost your credit score, take a look at your credit reports to see when Citi is making its reporting. You want to have it done when you have a zero balance, not the balance that you will be paying off for that month. Companies tend to do it at the same time every month, so adjusting when you send your payments in to have the reporting done when you account shows a zero balance will make it look like you have more credit available and will boost your numbers.

3. Lexi on February 7th, 2010 at 1:25 pm

   As far as the last question goes you can add addition citi cards to your thank you network.