Closing accounts (credit cards and banking)

Ticco wrote: ↑ I have a PC financial chequing account that I barely use now and really only use it once or twice a year when I remember that i have money it loll

Should I just close this account off?

Also for credit cards - I read on RFD that if you have a long history with a card, you should hold onto it even if you don't use it. Is this true?

I have a CIBC dividend card that I've had for over 10 years but it's been inactive for maybe 3 years now and I'm thinking of just closing it.

Ticco wrote: ↑ I have a PC financial chequing account that I barely use now and really only use it once or twice a year when I remember that i have money it loll

Should I just close this account off?

Also for credit cards - I read on RFD that if you have a long history with a card, you should hold onto it even if you don't use it. Is this true?

Ticco wrote:I have a PC financial chequing account that I barely use now and really only use it once or twice a year when I remember that i have money it loll

Should I just close this account off?

Also for credit cards - I read on RFD that if you have a long history with a card, you should hold onto it even if you don't use it. Is this true?

I have a CIBC dividend card that I've had for over 10 years but it's been inactive for maybe 3 years now and I'm thinking of just closing it.

choclover wrote: ↑ Interesting question. Up until recently, I was thinking that keeping all of my accounts open even if I rarely use them was fine and not doing any harm. However, I recently received a notice about inactivity on my PC Financial chequing and savings accounts which I have not used in a very long time. PC Financial has not had any decent promotions in a really long time and so I have kept these accounts open with only pennies in each. However, upon receiving this notice I discovered that after some amount of time inactivity fees will kick in. Based on this, I am thinking of closing down the accounts I don't use and taking the chance that if a new promotion comes along I can just go to the trouble of opening a new account with them all over again. I don't want to have to start keeping track of when inactivity fees kick in on various account. That would be too much for me.

Ticco wrote: ↑ Also for credit cards - I read on RFD that if you have a long history with a card, you should hold onto it even if you don't use it. Is this true?

I have a CIBC dividend card that I've had for over 10 years but it's been inactive for maybe 3 years now and I'm thinking of just closing it.

ace604 wrote: ↑

Ticco wrote: ↑ Also for credit cards - I read on RFD that if you have a long history with a card, you should hold onto it even if you don't use it. Is this true?

I have a CIBC dividend card that I've had for over 10 years but it's been inactive for maybe 3 years now and I'm thinking of just closing it.

Is that your oldest card? Keeping it will help your average age of accounts and your credit utilization, especially if you ever decide to churn and get a bunch of new cards, the old cards keep your average age older.

If you close it at 10 years it will stay on your report and keep helping age for 10 more years until it falls off your report then.

So say you had 2 cards, 1 you get today and you close the 10-yr card.

Your average age is still 5 years.
In 9.99 years your average age will be 15 years.
Then in 10.01 years your old closed card drops off your file and you are back down to 10.

Then if you get 2 new cards for signup bonuses your average age drops to 3.33.

If you keep the old card open, you'd have a 20, a 10, and two 0's and the average would be 7.5 years.

If the card is free, keep it open and active once in a while to generate activity on the line on your report.

The report count months of good activity and a nothing month is just neutral in that respect of your score (but adds a month to the age so helps still for that part).

Ticco wrote: ↑

ace604 wrote: ↑

Ticco wrote: ↑ Also for credit cards - I read on RFD that if you have a long history with a card, you should hold onto it even if you don't use it. Is this true?

I have a CIBC dividend card that I've had for over 10 years but it's been inactive for maybe 3 years now and I'm thinking of just closing it.

Is that your oldest card? Keeping it will help your average age of accounts and your credit utilization, especially if you ever decide to churn and get a bunch of new cards, the old cards keep your average age older.

If you close it at 10 years it will stay on your report and keep helping age for 10 more years until it falls off your report then.

So say you had 2 cards, 1 you get today and you close the 10-yr card.

Your average age is still 5 years.
In 9.99 years your average age will be 15 years.
Then in 10.01 years your old closed card drops off your file and you are back down to 10.

Then if you get 2 new cards for signup bonuses your average age drops to 3.33.

If you keep the old card open, you'd have a 20, a 10, and two 0's and the average would be 7.5 years.

If the card is free, keep it open and active once in a while to generate activity on the line on your report.

The report count months of good activity and a nothing month is just neutral in that respect of your score (but adds a month to the age so helps still for that part).

But how important is this age to your credit score? The bankers I go to when applying for credit lines keep telling me to close off my credit cards.

Well I forgot I had the government tax deposits linked to my PCF so it's actually never been inactive - I just let the tax returns accumulate and didn't even realize it. I was considering keeping this account open for promos that PCF seems to have every so often?

Yea the CIBC card is my oldest card it's over 10 years old for sure - obviously don't use it because the returns on it are so poor compared to my other ones.