Line of Credit question

[chet everett]

The "secret sauce" aspect of FICO's internal formula means that what happens to one person's score because of a certain action may not result in the same change to another person taking the same action.

That said, most people seem to NOT be terribly penalized or rewarded by merely shifting around the available credit / debt. It is almost always better to leave your total available credit as high as you can and never "bulk up" your debt in one place. On a practical level this makes sense too -- if you were to have every last cent you owed on one account and then something happened to increase the rate that you pay to that lender what are the others than any other lender would be eager to give you a new loan / extend credit to you?

Pay off the cards, ask for the account to have an updated number for security, use them sparingly for a minor purchase that you can fully pay off and your credit score will have to increase unless there are other negative factors. Closing them for some people might give your credit a "bruise" and for others it would barely be noticed...