Doesn't make a huge difference either way, keeping accounts open will
help your average age of accounts over time and would likely improve your credit utilization as well.
Many cards waive the annual fee for the first year; so if it really turns out you can't make the value work for you, you could cancel before the fee becomes due (although best of course to hold the card for as close to the full year as possible, to
help average age of accounts for your credit score)
Do note that even when you close a credit card, it typically isn't removed from your credit history immediately; it could even stay on your report for 10 years, and as long as it was in good standing (paid up) when it was closed, it could
help your average age of accounts as long as it's there.
Not exact matches
Many popular credit scoring models use the
average age of all your credit
accounts as one
of the metrics that
help determine your score.
Depending on the
average age of your
accounts, adding an authorized user can
help your credit score.
Think again, the
average age of your opened
accounts affects your score and the older
accounts help your credit score.
A reinstated credit
account should keep the original
account opening date which will
help the
Average Age of Accounts for credit score purposes.
Doing so will
help lengthen your
average age of account, which is a factor in computing your credit score.
Being an authorized user can
help a teen's credit score, but if the teen is removed as an authorized user at some point in the future then this will shorten their
average account age, which is a negative factor in the eyes
of credit rating agencies.
In some cases, closing older
accounts that have been open for a long time and are in good standing can actually
help raise your score because it reduces the
average age of your open
accounts.
You want to have one or two «no annual fee» cards that will always be in your wallet to
help raise the
average age of all your
accounts.
Average age of accounts helps your score, so constantly opening new
accounts and cancelling old is bad.
That way you get to keep the card open and have it increase your
average age of accounts, which
helps your credit score.
Drawbacks
of More Credit Cards: While it's true that in the long term opening up a new credit card can
help you to build credit, in the short term it will decrease your
average account age, a factor used when calculating your credit score — with older being better in the eyes
of card issuers.
Doing so will
help lengthen your
average age of account, which is a factor in computing your credit score.
In addition, you can look into getting business credit cards to
help mitigate damage done to your
average age of accounts.
However, what really makes it great is that you can downgrade this card to a no annual fee card like the Barclaycard Arrival and
help to preserve and improve your
average age of accounts and
help build up your credit score.
This
helps increase your
average age of accounts and saves you a little bit
of $ each year.
Additionally, holding a no - fee card long - term
helps increase the
average age of your
accounts and having more available credit
helps decrease your utilization ratio.
While it is good to keep
accounts open for a long time, the
age of your
accounts is only 15 %
of your credit score, so as long as you have a couple old
accounts helping to keep the
average long, that should suffice though there is really no set formula that will guarantee a high credit score.
This means that you want to keep your oldest credit cards, since they
help lengthen your
average age of accounts and counterbalance the negative effect
of closing cards you've only had a short time.