Credit Card Whoring

[wmspringer]

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wouldnt credit card whoring have a negative affect on your credit score because you are constantly opening new lines of credit?

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Briefly, yes. Especially if you make the mistake of canceling the cards after the 0% rate runs out.

[goodsamaritan]

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wouldnt credit card whoring have a negative affect on your credit score because you are constantly opening new lines of credit?

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Briefly, yes. Especially if you make the mistake of canceling the cards after the 0% rate runs out.

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Why would that be bad?

[RikaKazak]

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wouldnt credit card whoring have a negative affect on your credit score because you are constantly opening new lines of credit?

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Briefly, yes. Especially if you make the mistake of canceling the cards after the 0% rate runs out.

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Why would that be bad?

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I can't remember the correct term...but it's debt to "available credit"

Like if you owe $100 and you can borrow up to $500...that's better than owing $50 and only being able to borrow up to $100.

(basically closing cards means less credit available...but also, having TOO many credit lines available is a bad thing too (especially in a short time period opening too many is bad, cause it looks like you're preparing to go on a spending spree)

[beardedwhale]

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I can't remember the correct term...but it's debt to "available credit"

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Revolving utilization. This is one of the most common reasons for a below average credit score. If you use a high percentage of your available aggregate credit limit, your credit will be impacted even if you never go delinquent.

[goodsamaritan]

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I can't remember the correct term...but it's debt to "available credit"

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Revolving utilization. This is one of the most common reasons for a below average credit score. If you use a high percentage of your available aggregate credit limit, your credit will be impacted even if you never go delinquent.

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Let's say I normally have 2 credit cards open and use very little of my available credit on them. Then I whore some for a while and close them when the 0% APR ends, leaving my 2 original card open, still with nearly of their credit available. Shouldn't my credit score be in about the same place it started?

[edtost]

http://www.fatwallet.com/t/52/632935/
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/arcm...hreadid=431225
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/arcm...hreadid=176104

[edtost]

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I can't remember the correct term...but it's debt to "available credit"

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Revolving utilization. This is one of the most common reasons for a below average credit score. If you use a high percentage of your available aggregate credit limit, your credit will be impacted even if you never go delinquent.

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Let's say I normally have 2 credit cards open and use very little of my available credit on them. Then I whore some for a while and close them when the 0% APR ends, leaving my 2 original card open, still with nearly of their credit available. Shouldn't my credit score be in about the same place it started?

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yes, but it seems that it would often be higher if you did that, and then left the now-useless whoring cards open.

[bluef0x]

When you apply for credit cards, they do "hard pulls" which show up as inquiries on your credit report. This negatively affects your score for something like 6 months to a year. Also when you receive new cards, two things happen. Your credit limit increases- which improves your score, but your average card age decreases- which lowers your score. So if you were looking to get a loan within the next year, I wouldn't go on an app-o-rama. Otherwise, getting cards now and keeping them *CAN* be a wise choice (depends on if you are responsible or not).

So if you apply for a few cards, it would be pretty silly to cancel them. Also, the earlier you receive a card the sooner you can apply for a credit limit increase.

The cards with bonuses (that I know of) are the amazon.com card ($30), sonycard ($100 credit), and the att card ($50 gift card).