Gabe,

Based on the information you posted, here are my suggestions:

First Premier Credit Card - Feel free to close it. The whole purpose of having this card was to help you get better cards with bigger limits and it's done its job. I can't agree with SMCC. When you close a credit card, it will stay on your reports for 10 years before it falls off from your credit reports. Also, the history of the account will still be factored into your FICO credit scores. If I was you, I would close this account. First Premier is notorious for their ridiculous annual fees and insane interest rates. One more thing, some creditors will scratch their head and might frown upon the fact that you have an account with FPB. FPB is a sub-prime lender with a reputation of lending to consumers with poor to no credit.

Best Buy Reward Zone Mastercard - Is there an annual associated with this card? If not, then keep it but you can use it once a month to buy a can of soda or something to keep it active. If there is an annual fee, then I would close it. That's just me. A credit limit of $300 doesn't give you much purchasing power.

Capital One cards- Keep both of them. I've always had a good experience with Capital One. From what I've heard, they like to randomly issue credit limit increases. You never know, you might a see credit limit increase sooner than later.

Discover Cashback Bonus- Keep this card. It's good to have it on your credit report because Discover is a prime lender. They will treat you right down the road.

Bank of America Credit Card - Same story as Discover. Keep it.

Kay Jewelers Card - Sounds like a good card. Keep this card because it counts as a store card and brings diversity to your credit reports. It's always a good idea to have a mix of both store and VISA/Mastercard/AMEX/Discover cards.

Keep up the good work. You're on the right track.

I understand your issue. Your FPB card, should you close the card, yes you would be in good standing but you have stopped "aging" the card and that works against you. I understand the fees associated with this card and that will come down to your decision but wanted to let you know that although you will save on the fees that card will not be your oldest card and the next oldest card will now become the oldest. Age of credit is a factor in determining your credit score. if your next oldest card is within a year of opening your oldest card then I would close the FPB account but if your next oldest card is 2 or more years from opening your FPB account, then you have to weigh your yearly fees against the immediate decline in your score because of closing the FPB account. Not to say you can't build your credit score back up with effective mgmt of your current accounts though, your decision....

Thanks SM for your suggestions. It has been 4 years since my first card which is the FPB card and the Bank of America card was issued to me today. So you think that I should keep open the FPB card even though it only has a $200 limit? I only ask because I just finished up reading an article on here that said that if you close out an account in good standings, it won't affect your score negatively because it still is shown as a older line of credit. Having the $200 limit means that I'm only able to spend $40 on it to keep it below, which is fine because I don't use it anyways, but I'm still paying $7/month for fees and $49 for the year.. Just seems a bit crazy to be paying them to keep open a card I wouldn't use, but if you think that it would in fact hurt me to close it then I'd just suck it up and keep it open. As far as Capital One goes, I just got off the phone with them as to why they haven't upped my CL in the past 2 years and why they can't combine the 2 cards and they didn't have a legit answer for me besides just saying that "Capital One prides itself on its customer service and at this time we are unable to do what you request of us"... or some crap like that.. Basically the lady was trying to rush me off the phone and was pretty good at running around having to answer the direct questions I was asking.. I'll definitely keep the Kays card open, they are really good and I will use it a couple times a year just to keep from them lowering my limit. Thanks again and I welcome ANY suggestions that you or anyone else may have.

Thanks again!

Gabe

Gabe:

Reviewed your post and have a question:

(a) What is the window of time between opening your oldest credit card and your most recent ? If you have opened these accounts back to back possible lenders will look at this as your trying to open to many accounts to fast and worry. I would advise not opening anymore lines of credit and start to manage the credit you already have

You should not close your oldest account even though it has a low limit. Keep this card and use it infrequently because of the age of the card.

As far as your Cap One Cards, why not call Customer Service and consolidate the two limits to one Cap One card of $1500 ? Larger limit and one less card. You would consolidate to the card which has the longer history.

You will want to keep the Kay card because you have had this since school and again, the age of the card plays in your favor, I would suggest using this card infrequently to avoid possible closure of the account.

Remember Gabe, opening many accounts will decrease your credit score because of the "hard hits". Its not about how many accounts you have open but how you manage those accounts. Always keep the cards with the longest history and use them at least twice a year, never go above 30% of your total limit on any card at any one given time, make your payments on time and give your credit profile enough time to absorb all these "hard hits" so they can fall off your profile and thus increase your score. Just because you receive an offer for a card doesn't mean you should jump at it , be wise in your offer selection and only consider cards that will broaden your credit profile and give you more options in your spending ability and diversity

Hi Everyone,

I recently joined this website and so far I've learned quite a bit and I'm loving it!! I'm working on rebuilding my credit and I was hoping someone could give me some useful suggestions on where to go from here. So here's were I'm at...

First Premier Credit Card - $200 Limit.. (Should I drop this? It's my oldest card, but I don't use it much due to the low limit)

Best Buy Reward Zone Mastercard - $300 Limit... (Again, I don't use this much because of the low limit and not sure if its worth having?)

Capital One Platinum Cashback Rewards - $750.. (Now I've had this for quite some time and they seem to never increase my limit, which has caused me to look elsewhere. Capital One approved me for another card, but wouldn't up my limit on this one.. is that strange, or am I missing something here?)

Capital One Platinum- $750 (This is the second card they gave me with no rewards, so it's in the same boat as my first Cap 1, but they both have higher limits... so I'm assuming I keep them around?)

Discover Cashback Bonus- $1,200 ( I just got this card a few months ago and it's my first card with a bigger limit, love it so far, their website is awesome and seem to have their stuff in order.)

Bank of America Credit Card - $1,800 ( I literally just applied and was accepted for this card after following up with an offer in the mail. I'm super excited about this, and hope that it's putting me in the right direction for my credit to keep going up.)

Kay Jewelers Card - $1,800 (I think this was one of my first cards after college and they do a great job reporting and once this started to go up, I noticed more and more cards being offered. So I should probably hang on to this one even though I rarely use it? Thoughts?)

So there's a few of my questions, but the big one is this.... Should I close out my 2 lowest cards and open one with a chance of having a higher CL, and if so, what would be a good card to look into? I applied for a Citi card today too, but they said it could take up to 5 days to hear back, and I was hoping to get some feedback before then. I also just received an offer from HSBC for a GM card in the mail, which I haven't responded to because I'm hoping someone could point me in the direction of a better card after seeing where I'm coming from. So I use Equifax to monitor all my credit stuff and as of the other day it gave me my EQ score as 641.. I'm not sure if one of the main 3 is hitting higher than that or not, but I could definitely use some insight as to what I should consider doing and I really appreciate anyone taking the time to get back to me!!!

Cheers!!

-Gabe