I have a Nordstrom credit card and just got a notice regarding policy changes, what should I do (see details)

Assuming the card is paid off, if it doesn’t add a fee for inactivity, I wouldn’t do anything.

@WestRiverrat: it is paid off. if i don’t meet the minimum monthly payment, and they are charging for that, wouldn’t that be the same as an inactivity fee? (sorry, i’m really bad at understanding this stuff, i may just have to call them)

If they don’t charge on the $0 balance you could keep the card. Your minimum payment when there are 0 charges should be 0.

@WestRiverrat: thanks!

If you can keep your balance at zero, it really doesn’t matter how much they charge each month. It would be pretty awful if they charged for inactivity, but I guess that is something you would need to check—never heard of that though.

@skfinkel One of my cards did that to me. They would not let me cancel until the end of the first year without a fee. There was no fee if I used it and paid it off in the same month.

I didn’t keep that card for very long, and while I had it I would use it to buy a bottle of pop once a month. They must have gotten tired of billing me for 1.50 every month because they didn’t offer to renew it.

If you don’t use/need it, cancel the account in writing. Won’t affect your credit.

My comment is not specific to the Nordstrom card, but I do want to say that cancelling a credit card, even an unused card, does affect your credit score. It is not one of the “top five” factors that affect your credit, according to FICO, but it does have an effect.

There is no inactivity fee associated with the recent change in terms for the Nordstrom cards, just an increase in the minimum payment.

Closing an account may negatively affect your credit score as it could throw off the debt utilization equation portion of the score used by the credit bureaus. If none of your cards have a balance, then closing the account will have minimal if any affect. If you have $10000 in total credit available are using $2700 you have a 27% utilization. So in this case, closing a card with no balance that is $2000 of your total credit you now have $8000 total credit with $2700 which bumps your credit utilization up to 34% and will negatively affect your credit score.

I am not sure how closing a card that is maxed out on it’s limit will affect the credit score and it may depend on the company. If the company continues to report the available credit as the current balance on the card, then closing it should have little or no effect. More than likely the company will report the limit as zero and really throw off the equation. Does anyone know more details on this scenario?