Exactly my point Cheryl. Closing a revolving account with an established credit history can hurt you. What folks like yourself must continue to do is manage your credit history. Paying on time is not good enough anymore.

Maintaining a credit balance (if you are going to carry your balance) should be in the range of 20-30% of the allowed credit limit available to you.

Kirk, I've always been told that you should keep the number of open accounts down to a minimum, but what you are saying doesn't support that.  I do know that opening and closing accounts to get the best rate isn't good, but what about having a lot of open credit accounts?  Because my business is so cyclical I need to draw on my credit cards during the down cycles and I pay them off and put money aside during the up cycles.  Most of the time I don't carry any balances on my credit cards.  How does this affect my credit?

Gail- You should manage the number of revolving accounts and the amount of their limits because having several revolving with zero balance with high available balances can have an adverse impact on score also.

My point is that if you have an existing account that has been open for four or more years and you close it and replace it with a new card, you have eliminated out of the credit score equation the account with history replacing it with the new account without history and the potential result will be a lower score particularly if you repeat this process more than once in a three year period.

I hope that clarifies my point.

Kirk, Yes, I see your point.  I think I will continue to maintain the extensive credit lines that I currently have because when you really need credit, you just can't get it.  If our business goes through a major downturn, I need reserves to draw on.

I agree. You are doing the right thing. The good news is you are managing the situation. That's a good thing! I'm guessing you will have a good year in your area anyway. Good luck and we will chat again I hope.

Great points. I would like to see more posts about how not to ruin your FICO score. What about keeping paid off accounts open?