Comments (scroll down to add your own):

1. I have a couple that are around 10-11 years old. One is just a basic visa opened with my university’s credit union when I was back in school, and the other was some stupid store card I opened at Hudson’s, which turned into Marshall Field’s, and is now Macy’s. I only use them enough to keep them active, since they aren’t very good cards, I just use them for the longer credit history.

   Comment by Jeremy — Sep 2nd 2008 @ 9:25 am

2. I have 2 (Express and Capital One) that I got shortly after graduating from high school (7 years ago). We’ll probably buy a house in the next few years, so I’m not too anxious about closing anything right now, but I’ve got express, jcrew and american eagle cards that I would love to make go away. Do you think that since they’re small value store cards once we buy a house I can close them and not run into too much trouble?

   Comment by Nicole — Sep 2nd 2008 @ 10:17 am

3. Does length of time you’ve had the card matter past 7 years?

   Comment by Blaine Moore — Sep 2nd 2008 @ 10:28 am

4. My oldest is maybe 8 years but I’m 28 so the max I could have is 10 years

   Comment by jim of Blueprint for Financial Prosperity — Sep 2nd 2008 @ 10:56 am

5. Blaine: Good question. I suspect that it does matter. While activity drops off after seven years, all current cards remain on there and I think they still track the age of the account no matter how old it is. Also, when you check tyour credit score they always give some bullet points on how to improve it. In my case, they have always mentioned something about the age of my accounts, saying that the score will increase with older accounts — this is despite already having accounts considerably older than the seven year threshold.

   Comment by nickel — Sep 2nd 2008 @ 11:23 am

6. My first and oldest card account was opened in 1991. It’s interesting that people fondly reminisce about their first loves, their first cars, and their first credit cards.

   Comment by Kim McGrigg — Sep 2nd 2008 @ 12:16 pm

7. Great article! I currently have 2 credit cards one which is a marathon gas card supported by mastercard which has no fees and gives me 5% back on my gas. The other is just a VISA bank card with no benifits. Although the card is around 5 years of age I have often thought of switching to a card that would give me more benifits on air travel, but should I do it if my other card has a longer credit history?

   Comment by Christopher Holdheide — Sep 2nd 2008 @ 12:31 pm

8. The oldest card on my credit report is from 1982! I’m sure it is a card I opened in college. I don’t use it (not even sure what it is) but I don’t close it out either as it definitely helps my credit score to have that long of a credit history.

   Comment by Mary — Sep 2nd 2008 @ 11:04 pm

9. 11 years old – good ol’ dad hooked me up to use it “in case of emergencies” back during my freshmen year at college…turned out beer wasn’t considered an emergency…but i can do as i please now with it

   Comment by J. Money — Sep 3rd 2008 @ 2:35 pm

10. I would have answered 18 years but the credit card company decided to discontinue the card in its current form. Surprisingly, they didn’t even have the decency to offer to roll it into a different card. The oldest I have now is only about 4 years old. Since I no longer wanted to pay a fee to accumulate frequent flyer miles that are nearly impossible to use, I was able to convert it to a cash back card. It was almost unsettling as to how easy they made it to retain me as a customer. I even got to keep the same credit card number, so no ding on the credit history.

    Comment by Once_Bitten — Sep 3rd 2008 @ 11:13 pm

11. Discover was the first card I got in college in 1989. That makes it 19 years? Wow, that makes me feel old. And we still use the card.

    Comment by Eric — Sep 4th 2008 @ 2:38 pm

12. I fell for the “free t-shirt” with credit card my freshman year of college. “Prime Option Master Card” it started out as… I believe that eventually rolled into “AT&T Universal Master Card”.

    I believe my Discover card is the same age, but I don’t carry that one with me anymore so I can’t check quick.

    Since I’m 31 now, these are both about 13 years old and I have never gotten in SO over my head that I had to close any of these accounts.

    We are not in the market for buying a house anymore, and my husband also has a Discover card. I think we both want to kill our Discover accounts as soon as our debt/avail credit % starts to look a little better.

    Comment by Danielle — Sep 4th 2008 @ 4:54 pm

13. While my oldest banking relationship are over 15 years old, my oldest credit card is much younger. My credit union keeps offering better cards, but changing cards means changing card numbers. I hate that, for credit score reasons.

    Comment by Kate — Sep 4th 2008 @ 7:56 pm

14. oldest cc is my providian/wamu. 1st card post divorce+layoff = ch7 year from h*ll 10 yrs ago. loathe their utter lack of service & mobster APR, but keeping the history.

    Comment by ammbd — Sep 4th 2008 @ 10:13 pm

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