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.
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!