Credit card/ credit score question

[Deleted]

I recently had an issue with the one credit card I use mostly for travel and online purchases.  I've had it 20 years and always had a 10.9% APR.  They sent me a letter stating it would increase to 16.9% based on my credit history.  So I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with my credit.  The only major change is that I bought a house in August.  (Previously lived in an apartment for 3 years).  But I've purchased houses before without an issue. 

But out my actual question is related to my credit cards.  I have way too many open that I do not use and have collected over the years mostly for reward purposes, like with Macy's I get 20% off a lot.  I want to close a bunch of them.  I have 8 store cards and 6 major credit cards.  I'd like to reduce that to 3 and 2.
is that going to hurt my credit?  I know I need to keep my oldest card open.

ETA:  I do not keep balances on any of them

[my3bears]

I got a similar letter, my FICO score is in the 800s and I never carry a balance on my cards. I showed DH and he basically said they're raising it because they can.

If you don't carry a balance, it doesn't matter what they raise it to, so I wouldn't worry about it.

When was the last time you checked your credit report? My store CCs were closed by the store within a year or so with nothing on my part done.

If you close credit cards it will hurt your score because it makes the balance of used credit to available credit smaller. Why not just keep them but don't use them? I easily have 6+ cards myself but I only carry 2 in my wallet at any given time. The rest I keep in a separate wallet. I check the unused cards' balance every month just to monitor for fraud.

[Deleted]

Mar 26, 2015 7:24:50 GMT -5 my3bears said:

I got a similar letter, my FICO score is in the 800s and I never carry a balance on my cards. I showed DH and he basically said they're raising it because they can.

If you don't carry a balance, it doesn't matter what they raise it to, so I wouldn't worry about it.

When was the last time you checked your credit report? My store CCs were closed by the store within a year or so with nothing on my part done.

If you close credit cards it will hurt your score because it makes the balance of used credit to available credit smaller. Why not just keep them but don't use them? I easily have 6+ cards myself but I only carry 2 in my wallet at any given time. The rest I keep in a separate wallet. I check the unused cards' balance every month just to monitor for fraud.

I wanted to close them just to "clean things up", like why have them if I don't use them.  Also fraud concerns me a lot more lately.  I've have a lot of fraudulent charges in the last year.  Granted they were all following a transaction so the ones I don't use are less at risk for this.

[pamela]

Getting our mortgage dropped my score from 810-780 for a few months due to balance to limit on the mortgage. It's rebounding now as it gets paid down.

[madringal]

Unless you are planning on making a large purchase (house or car) with your credit in the next 6 months, then closing them and taking a tiny hit to your credit won't hurt anything. There is no reason to keep a bunch of cards you don't use.

[M]

Mar 26, 2015 14:03:53 GMT -5 madringal said:

Unless you are planning on making a large purchase (house or car) with your credit in the next 6 months, then closing them and taking a tiny hit to your credit won't hurt anything. There is no reason to keep a bunch of cards you don't use.

This.

I did the same thing a long time ago in my still naive (where i didn't know closing a bunch out could hurt my score) but not as naive years (where I was opening a lot of cards because of the rewards and because I could). My score might have taken a hit? But I didn't notice... and I'm glad I did it then or I would still go back to it time and time again..worried about hurting my credit.

So if you don't need stellar credit anytime soon, close them and be done with it.