Credit Card recommendations.

[sleddogman]

You are wise not to cancel it, as (believe it or not) it harms your FICO score (credit rating) when you close a credit account.

Of course, the flip side to that is that the amount of available credit (potential debt) is factored in during evaluations for loans and other lines of credit. I've closed numerous credit card accounts over the years with minimal to no impact to my FICO score. Now, those lines of credit do stay in my credit history, showed I paid on time, and that I closed the account in a certain year in good standing. I pull the free reports I'm entitled to from the big 3 every year, just out of self defense and to make sure the info is correct. I do know that jumping or bouncing from one "no-interest" offer to another to avoid finance charges does impact your rating if done too often.

What I do find myself doing periodically is calling the issuing bank every time they decide to graciously raise my credit limit and telling them to cut it back to where it was. This keeps the overall "potential debt" on your credit report at an acceptable level. I have a Citibank card I've used for over 20 years strictly for business expenses and business travel and after a while, I noticed that my credit limit had crept up to $26,000, which I called and had them cut by 3/4, as I was always reimbursed by the companies I worked for on bi-weekly or monthly basis.

 

[KingBubba]

Njord, in your other thread you said you had settled on a CC decision. Would you let us know what and why, for our education?

 

[Njord Noatun]

Njord, in your other thread you said you had settled on a CC decision. Would you let us know what and why, for our education?

Only if you promise to send me to serial number of your Concept 5.5 for the database......

Kidding, of course. I followed Brudha's recommendation to check out that "FatWallet" web site, and the Chase Freedom card seems to be pretty highly regarded (the guys at that forum appear about as single-track minded about their credit cards (etc.) as we are about audio here!) there, mostly because of pretty generous rewards. Signed up in 30 seconds on the web site, got credit approved online within another 30 seconds. So far, so good!

Although Chase was not unanimously recommended here, I figure it cannot possibly be any worse than my old BofA card, and if it is, I can just have my dog chew the Chase card up as he did with my BofA.