Question
My wife currently has 2 credit cards, neither of which has a balance. I'd like her to get an Aadvantage Mastercard. She's had both of her current cards about the same amount of time (7 years or so), and the Citi MC has a much higher limit. Should she cancel one or both of her current cards before applying for this new one?
Answer
7 years of credit history with high limit is good for your score. Unless you have too many cards eating the dust in your drawar, try to avoid cancelling. Golden rule is to cancel the cards with recent history if that is an option.
Answer
Why not use the your existing Citi Mastercard and transfer it to the AAdvantage Mastercard? That way you don't have to apply for a new card. Your account will be transferred from your existing Citi MC to the your new AA Card without a hit on your credit report. Call the application line and see if you're eligible.
Answer
He wont get the 15k (or whatever it is this month) bonus after first purchase if he converts from one Citi CC to the AAdvantage.
Dont close your existing Citi. Just apply for the new AAdvantage. You might get a lower CL, but then you can probably reallocate CL from the existing Citi to the new AAdvantage. Hmm, I know with MBNA and AMEX you can, but have never done myself with Citi.
Answer
Thanks, all. I definitely was leaning towards cancelling, so I'm glad I asked.
Answer
you need to go thru the application for AAdvantage MC in order to get the bonus miles, 10K to 15K depends on which type.
when you apply AAdvantage MC on aa.com site, it actually asks you whether you have other Citi card(s), and it would fill out good portion of the info for you once you put in your Citi card number.
Citi will look at the credit line you have with the existing card and determine how much credit line you would get on the AAdvantage card. Sometimes they may call you to ask to reduce the credit line on the existing one in order to open the additional AAdvantage one.
You can always switch Credit Line among all your citi cards.
Of course, if you dont care for the sign up bonus of AAdvantage card, you can simply switch the regular MC to the AAdvantage, and no credit card application info would show up on your credit report.