I've been lurking on here for a while and swimming through this thread. Must say, I'm impressed. Also I've spent some time reading through some threads on flyertalk and other blogs. Based on that, I think I'm ready to get into this and start racking up some miles for the wife and I. Before I get to that point, I've got a couple quick questions. At the moment, the we have about 3 credit cards that we use regularly and probably 3 or 4 each that we don't use at all and haven't been used for quite a while. We've both got very good credit at the moment. We'd like to shed some of the cards that we never use before we go out and apply for new ones to get the mileage bonuses. My worry is, that we've had some of these cards for a long time and they have all always been paid on time, thus aiding our credit. I've always been told to keep accounts like that open since it shows good credit history. How damaging (credit score wise) would it be to cancel these?
Basically, what I'm getting at is, we'd like to keep our number of cards at a relatively decent number. So, if we go out and apply for 3 or 4 cards each over the next 3-4 months, what scenario would be the path of least damage? Going forward, we'll churn through some cards and keep our total number in a respectable range, but its just getting started that I'm a bit apprehensive about. Sd, rd, anyone else have any thoughts? Happy to provide some additional info if necessary.
I wish I would have found this thread long ago when I traveled a lot more than I do now. Some of this stuff is fantastic.