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<blockquote data-quote="tRidiot" data-source="post: 3533102" data-attributes="member: 569830">Having too MUCH available credit, especially for your income level, is considered risky by many lenders. They see it as the potential to run up 20, 30, even 100k of debt in a month&#039;s time and walk, or to simply overextend yourself during rough times.Keeping a few cards (2-5) with the lowest interest rates, the best terms (no annual fee, etc.) won&#039;t hurt you. Asking for unused cards to be closed and reported to the bureau as &quot;Account closed by customer&quot; will not hurt your report (ALWAYS do all your communicating in writing and keep copies). Keep your oldest cards open if practical, to extend the average age of your credit lines. All of these things will help your score. Keeping your ratio down (balance vs. available credit) below 30% is also optimal, as well as having no card that is near it&#039;s max. If you&#039;ve got 30k in available credit, but your lowest card with the $500 limit has $400 on it, it will hurt your score a small amount.You don&#039;t have to use your cards 1-2x each per month... you basically want to use it a couple of times a year, so that you don&#039;t start setting off &quot;non-use&quot; flags by the credit grantor... they may periodically purge their accounts of people who never use their cards... why should they keep sending you statements and keeping your accounts open when they haven&#039;t made any money off you in 10 years? Just using it enough to keep it looking &quot;active&quot; (this varies by every company) should be enough. Some lenders don&#039;t care much about this.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="tRidiot, post: 3533102, member: 569830"] Having too MUCH available credit, especially for your income level, is considered risky by many lenders. They see it as the potential to run up 20, 30, even 100k of debt in a month's time and walk, or to simply overextend yourself during rough times. Keeping a few cards (2-5) with the lowest interest rates, the best terms (no annual fee, etc.) won't hurt you. Asking for unused cards to be closed and reported to the bureau as "Account closed by customer" will not hurt your report (ALWAYS do all your communicating in writing and keep copies). Keep your oldest cards open if practical, to extend the average age of your credit lines. All of these things will help your score. Keeping your ratio down (balance vs. available credit) below 30% is also optimal, as well as having no card that is near it's max. If you've got 30k in available credit, but your lowest card with the $500 limit has $400 on it, it will hurt your score a small amount. You don't have to use your cards 1-2x each per month... you basically want to use it a couple of times a year, so that you don't start setting off "non-use" flags by the credit grantor... they may periodically purge their accounts of people who never use their cards... why should they keep sending you statements and keeping your accounts open when they haven't made any money off you in 10 years? Just using it enough to keep it looking "active" (this varies by every company) should be enough. Some lenders don't care much about this. [/QUOTE]

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