As I recently posted about, Chase and American Express will offer new co-branded credit cards later this year as a result of the the Marriott/SPG merger. Unfortunately, I am above 5/24 and will likely not be able to take advantage of any new Chase cards at first. However, I am poising myself to be able to take advantage of any new Amex cards on deck by canceling some of my Amex cards now to get under the Amex 5 card rule. (American Express will not allow you to have more than five cards inclusive of BUSINESS AND PERSONAL cards at one time).
Recall, Rob and I had a bunch of the older versions of the Hilton cards from downgrades, Citibank conversions, etc. I canceled all but one of these Hilton Honors cards. However, I moved most of credit first to other existing Amex cards that we have. Remember, DO NOT CANCEL A CARD WITHOUT TRYING TO MOVE YOUR CREDIT LINE TO ANOTHER CARD. Lower credit lines, negatively affect your utilization ratio which leads to a lower credit score.
I only kept one of the cards, because Rob had a very high credit line but Amex wouldn’t let him reallocate the credit line because “you cannot reallocate credit limits between your accounts more than once during a 30 day period”. Huh?!?!?!? So this one, I need to wait a month to move the credit line and then cancel.
Note, I know that from canceling these cards, our credit scores will take a hit, but only a little bit and it rebounds pretty quickly.
Bring on those new Amex cards….I am ready to apply and score some bonus offers!
