How does a no-limit charge card affect your credit score?
Apparently it is up to the credit card company on how they want to report your available balance. Another disadvantage to the no-limit   credit card may not be apparent to   most people, but it is something noted   by organizations like The Motley Fool,   which is expert in many issues of   finance and investment. Part of your   credit  score, about 30%, considers   the amount of money you have borrowed,   and the limit on your present credit   cards. A no-limit credit card company   may report your limit as $0 if you   have not used the card, or they may   report  a maximum limit available to   you. They may not, nor are they   obligated, to report times when you   put tons of expenses on a credit  card   and then paid them off. While some companies will report your   timely payments and paid off amounts,   others simply report an extremely low   limit. For instance if you spent $100   US Dollars (USD), your limit might be   considered $100 USD, or it may merely   be reported as zero. You’ll need to   check with a credit card company on   how they report payments and limits on   a no-limit credit card before you   obtain one. Some people who are   scrupulous are paying off their cards   at the end of each month suffer major   losses to their credit score, without   even realizing it, if their spending   ability is rated at zero, or their   payments don’t count toward showing   credit worthiness. Source
Well, you might take a minor hit to your credit score. This is snapshot of my credit utilization written for an article on my site. The point there was that zero card use actually dinged the score, but for you, going over the 20% level is the risk. It's not too large a hit, depending how high the utilization goes. I'd not lose sleep over it. Kind of you to help. Your credit score is based on your use of Debt. From wikipedia: Opening and closing bank accounts, buying or selling cars without debt, or even buying or selling houses without debt won't affect your credit score. FICO score tracks credit, not checking or savings. Unless there was a credit line attached, no impact at all. "Several events will always result in a reduction of your score, including: These will show up in the short term, but I don't think it's worth $40 per year in perpetuity to avoid this. These aren't serious ""black marks"" in the same category as missing payments, carrying too much debt, or foreclosures/evictions, etc. These effects are designed to signal issuers when someone acquires a large amount of credit in a very short period of time, which may indicate a greater risk. If your credit is good and you are using your other cards responsibly, closing the card (given the annual fee) would not cause me great concern if it were me. Since you are so much better of a risk than you likely were in college, you can also call Capital One, ask to speak with a supervisor, and ask them to drop the fee and increase your credit limit. They should be able to easily verify that you meet the requirements for other types of preferred cards they offer, and they should be willing to offer you improved terms rather than losing your business. It is very possible they simply haven't re-evaluated your risk since you initially applied. Also, remember that these types of effects determine only a portion of your overall score. Activity is also a major component. Rather than leaving an unused card open for history and debt-to-limit purposes only, I would also recommend having some minimum level of activity, such as an automatic bill payment, on each card you carry. The effect of using your cards over time will have a significant positive effect on your score. Best of luck!" Even if you can get a credit card with a $0 limit, that doesn't necessarily mean that the charges won't succeed. Some of my credit cards have gone over limit by a significant amount (e.g. 140% of limit) without any transactions being declined. The limit just means that the bank is allowed to decline the transaction, but they are also allowed to approve it anyway. So basically what you would have is a credit card where any transaction can always be declined or approved. There is only a catch if you swallow the hook.  The hook is that the bank hopes you will use the increased credit limit to buy more stuff, and not pay what you owe before the interest-free period expires.  This will allow them to charge their high interest rate on the outstanding balance.  Now if you don't increase your spending, and keep paying your balance in full, nothing happens. After doing some investigating, my employers contract with the credit card company has a clause that basically specifies that despite my name being on the credit card, and bills being sent to me, all liability is on the company. Additionally, the employer reserves the right to garnish wages in the event of a balance on the card. So it looks like it won't affect my credit score. I appreciate all of the advice. Credit scoring has changed since the time of this question (July 2017) and it is now possible that having a high available credit balance can negatively affect your credit score. ... VantageScore will now mark a borrower negatively for having   excessively large credit card limits, on the theory that the person   could run up a high credit card debt quickly. Those who have prime   credit scores may be hurt the most, since they are most likely to have   multiple cards open. But those who like to play the credit card   rewards program points game could be affected as well. source "If you look around online and read about credit scores, you'll find all kinds of information about what you should do to maximize your credit score.  However, in my opinion, it just isn't worth rearranging your life just to try to achieve some arbitrary score.  If you pay your bills on time and are regularly using a credit card, your score will take care of itself. Yes, you can cut up the card you don't like and keep the credit card account open.  The bank may close your account at some point in the future because of a lack of activity, but if they do, don't worry about it.  You have other accounts that you are using.  Personally, I don't like having open credit accounts that I'm not using; I close accounts when I'm done with them.  I realize that it goes against everything that you will read, but my score is very high and my oldest open credit card account is 2 years old.  Don't let them scare you into credit activity that you don't want just to try to ""win"" at the credit score." Credit cards are meant to be used so generally it doesn't hurt your credit score to use them.  To top it off you even get an interest grace period so you don't have to rush home and pay balances as soon as they're charged.   In general you accrue charges during your statement period, we'll call it September 1 through September 30.  The statement due date is something like 20 days after the close of the statement period, so we'll call it October 20.  As long as you habitually pay your entire statement balance by the due date you will never pay interest.  You charge your laptop on September 3, it shows up on your statement as $1,300, you pay $1,300 on October 18, you pay no interest. However, if you pay $1,000 on October 18 leaving a $300 balance to be carried in to the next statement period (a carried balance) you will pay interest.  Generally interest is calculated based on your average daily balance during the statement period, which is now be the October 1 to October 31 period.  You'll notice that you didn't pay anything until the October 18, that means the entire $1,300 will be included in your average daily balance up to the 18th of the month.  Add to that, anything else you charge on the card now will be included in your average daily balance for interest charge calculation purposes. The moral of the story is, use your card, and pay your entire statement balance before the due date.   Now how much will this impact your credit score?  It's tough to say.  Utilization is not a bad thing until it's a big number.  I've read that 70% utilization and over is really the point at which lenders will raise an eyebrow and under 30% is considered excellent. If you have one card and $1,300 is a significant portion of your available limit, then yes you should probably pay it down quickly.  Spend six or so months using the card and paying it, then call your bank and ask for a credit line increase. I agree with JoeTaxpayer that you will be better off in the end if you can just not use your card you are better off in the long run.  That said if you are determined to get a card you can control go to a credit union or local bank.  Most of them will give you the credit limit you want.  This may provide you with a card that you can make use of but know that you can not go wild.  The down side is most of these will not be reward cards but my local credit union gave me a 7% card where my Chase card is at 18%(was 5% before the changes to credit card regulations). Closing the card will be fine. The consequences are related to your available credit and actual/potential utilization. If you have less total credit, any credit you actually use will be a greater percentage of your total credit, manipulating your score downwards more greatly. The next consequence will be related to the age of your credit history, which is an average of your credit lines. This seems negligible and also beneficial for you, since your credit history is so young to begin with. The first thing I assess when looking at new credit cards is whether it has no annual fee, the second thing I look at is how long the interest free period is. I always pay my credit card off in full just before the due date. Any rewards program is a bonus. My main credit card is with CBA, I have a credit limit of $20K and pay no annual fee. I get a bonus point for every $ I spend on it, for which I exchange for store gift cards to help with my everyday spending. Approximately 3500 point would get me a $25 gift card. But my main reward with the card is the interest I save by keeping my own money in a Home Loan Offset account whilst I spend with the Bank's money. Then I pay the full amount off by the due date so I do not pay any interest on the credit card. I only use my credit cards for purchases I would usually make anyway and to pay bills, so my spending would be the same with or without a credit card. I can usually save over $500 each year off my Home Loan interest and get about $350 worth of gift cards each year. If I didn't have any Home Loans then I would keep my money in a high interest depost account so I would be increasing my interest payments each year. Sure you can probably get credit cards with more generous rewards programs, but how much are you paying each year in annual fees, and if you don't have an interest free period and you don't pay off all the amount due each month how much are you paying in interest on the card? This is what you need to way up when looking at rewards programs on offer. Nothing is for free, well almost nothing ! I've read multiple times that the way to rebuild the credit score is to get a credit card and then have some minor charges on it every month and have them paid in full every month. Old negative events age and this disciplined activity rebuild the score to some not to horrible levels. Now it's true that it's hard to get reasonably good credit cards when your credit score is poor. Yet it's not necessary to have a good credit card for this case - such things as large credit limit are not needed. All that's needed is a long grace period so that there's no interest between the moment a charge is done and a moment the bill is paid in full at the end of the month. Yes, the card may have rather high interest and rather low credit limit, but it doesn't really matter. I've read once on MSN Money that people are offered credit even while they're in the middle of bankruptcy, so it's not impossible to get a credit card in the described situation. Goes without saying that a lot of discipline will be needed to have all this implemented. non-resident aliens to the US do not pay capital gains on US products. You pay tax in your home country if you have done a taxable event in your country. http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/06/nonusresidenttax.asp#axzz1mQDut9Ru but if you hold dividends, you are subject to US dividend tax. The UK-US treaty should touch on that though.