Credit Advice

Almost always it hurts your credit score, with the assumption that your credit card accont, which you want to close, has a limit that is reported to the credit bureaus. Simply by doing it you lower you overall credit limit and it increases your credit utilization.

E.g. You have 3 cards with $2,000 limit each, and the total debt on two cards is $600 and on the one for close is $0. Then your utilization is $600/$6000 = (total debt / total credit) = 10%.

If you close 1 of 3 accounts, then your total utilization is higher; $600/ $4000 = 15%.

The exception is if the credit card does not report the limit (e.g. World Master Card: Citi Expedia, Citi Premier Pass...) then it would not hurt your score that much, only in the number of the two opened accounts. Those cards that do not report the limit are the ones that have no pre-set spending limit, meaning you can go over the limit (without a fee), as long as you are under the limit until the payment due date. Usually require very high credit score.

The number of opened accounts factor is in the "low" category per creditkarma, while credit utilization is in the "high" category of the impact on the credit score. I fully agree to it.

Hope it helps.

It will always hurt your account to close any credit card. Just keep it open and use it to pay your pg&e or smud bill then pay it off that month.