But a provider can cancel a credit card without warning for inactivity, and losing a card you've had for a long time can
lower the average age of your accounts.
Closing a credit card account will actually hurt your credit score (which should be starting to recover by now, by the way) in two big ways: it will lower the amount of your total credit and it will
lower the average age of your accounts.
Additionally, if you do open a new account, you'll likely
lower the average age of the accounts on your credit reports, which can potentially have a negative score impact.
But if you do so, that would change your oldest active account AND
lower the average age of all accounts.
Doing so could significantly lower your credit score, by
lowering the average age of your accounts and raising your credit utilization ratio.
Also, if it's an old card, canceling it may
lower the average age of your accounts.
Closing a credit card account will actually hurt your credit score (which should be starting to recover by now, by the way) in two big ways: it will lower the amount of your total credit and it will
lower the average age of your accounts.
Not exact matches
The annual fee is important because your goal is to establish a long
average age of accounts: you want to carry these cards forever, so the
lower the annual fee, the less you'll pay over the long term.
Additionally, each new card you open shortens your
average age of accounts, further
lowering your score.
Newly activated credit cards will decrease the
average age of all your credit
accounts combined, which may
lower your credit score.
A fresh
account lowers the
average age of your credit lines, while a high balance on a
low credit line can inflate your credit utilization ratio.
Plus, your new
account lowers the
average age of your credit profile.
If you open a lot
of credit at one time you look risky to the lender because new
accounts lowers your
average account age which also affects your length
of history.
Two
of those are open revolving credit dollars (you want a lot
of available credit with
low usage) and
average age of accounts (older
accounts show a good history
of responsible use).
You should also make an effort to open
accounts sparingly as the frequent opening
of new
accounts will
lower the
average credit
age.
Opening a bunch
of new credit
accounts can significantly
lower your
average account age and make it look like you are an over-eager credit seeker.
Will closing these
low aged accounts (say an
account thats 6 months old) be beneficial for the
average age of account for those scores?
I would be closing in hopes that the closed
account would not factor a
low aged account into my avg
age of account (and therefore hopefully boost my
average age of account).
When you open up a new card, it's «young»
age is factored into the
age of your other credit
accounts and the overall
average age is
lowered.
Not only does closing the card do nothing to remove either the inquiry or new
account that left your score
lower, closing it won't prevent the card's very short credit history from unfavorably impacting the scoring calculations —
average account age, oldest and newest
account age, for example — that make up the length
of credit history scoring category (about 15 percent
of your score).
New
accounts will
lower your
average account age, which will have a larger effect on your FICO ® Scores if you don't have a lot
of other credit information.
If you apply for several new credit cards at once, you'll
lower the overall
average age of your credit
accounts.
If you have closed one
of your older
accounts, this will have
lowered the
average age of your credit.
Adding a bunch
of new
accounts to your credit history while churning will
lower your
average account age with the addition
of each new
account.
It benefits your credit score in at least three ways... higher
average age of accounts,
lower utilization, and number
of accounts.
New
accounts will
lower your
average account age, which could negatively impact your length
of credit history.