I have 3 credit cards…
- Oldest, good for groceries, but that’s it. It represents about 45% of my total credit card limit.
- Crappy card, used to have good rewards but now sucks. This is about 40% of my total credit card limit. A few years old. I use it once every few months to keep it active.
- My current “best” card that I use for most things. Only had it about a year. Represents around 15% of my total credit limit, but I’d like it to be more as it has the best rewards.
I pay off all my cards twice a month and have a great credit score.
I’m wondering if there’s any drawbacks to cancelling my crappy card and either applying for a limit increase on my good one or just applying for a new/better card.
If it’s with the same company, yes you can usually transfer some credit. If not, you can try but it’s less certain.
The only drawback is losing some credit history, but it’s not your oldest card.
It’d be different companies, unfortunately.
I’ve had a big jump in income between cards and my credit score is great. But I’m not even anywhere near my full credit limit and I don’t plan to get there.
Maybe I’ll just apply for a new card.
Would it be better to apply after cancelling the old one (since I’ll then have a lower maximum credit available to me)?
If you’ve actually checked your credit score and it looks good, I would just go ahead and apply. If you haven’t checked, there’s various services (creditkarma, borrowwell, etc) that will give you that data.
I do credit card churning (see reddit /r/churningcanada) and currently hold 10 cards, having gone through 20 in the past 2 years. As long as you pay off the cards fully each month and maintain a good credit rating, you can be pretty aggressive with your cards.
Check out https://www.reddit.com/r/churningcanada/comments/tujfse/best_current_credit_card_offers_in_canada_updated/ for suggestions on what cards are worth getting.
Thanks for the tips!
