Personal Finance & Money Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people who want to be financially literate. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I've heard people say if you cancel a credit card it hurts your credit score... not sure how true that is.
Anyway...
I have a credit card with a $8500 limit that I push a good $2000+ through a month on.
The problem is I don't fly much or if any. I was under the impression with the South West card from Chase you could also book hotels and cars without a plane ticket. Anyway, I plan to cancel it due to the yearly fee and pick up another credit card.
Will doing so hurt my credit rating?
It will have an impact on your score.
The overall effect will be negative though probably not enough to be really meaningful. One of the factors to your credit score is average account age. Cancelling a card will hurt your average account age, as will opening a new account. The depth of this impact is really dependent on number and age of your other accounts.
I'd call Chase and ask if they could just convert your account to a Freedom or similar other Chase product. Alternatively, if you have a healthy score you should apply for a new card now, which will have a small negative impact on your score. Then cancel your Southwest card just before the annual fee hits. This way you're spreading out the negative impacts.
