The first step to cancel a credit card is to contact the card issuing company. While many issues will let you cancel your card over the phone, while some will ask you to fulfill some written formalities. You may be transferred to the special service rep, who will try to convince you to keep the card. If you have been a good customer, yhey may be willing to decrease your interest rate, waive an annual fee or upgrade your card from standard to platinum. Some issuers of air mile credit cards even have been known to offer two-for-one plane tickets or travel vouchers to customers willing to leave.
If the new card deal is better than older, you may want to buy the new ones while canceling other cards. Don’t forget to ask your issuer to report to the credit bureaus to check if the account was ‘closed at customer’s request.’ Always make a note of the date and time, you called and to whom you talked for your records. A written confirmation that the account has been closed should be dispatched from the card issuer. Hang on to the notice of your records. In this way, if anything goes wrong with the account in the future, you have got solid proofs that you closed it. If you have balances spread out over many cards, you may want to consolidate balances on one or two low-rate cards and cancel the remaining.
If you are planning to buy a house or car soon, you may want to hang on to your unused credit lines unless you have qualified for a loan. However, canceling a large amount of unused credit can actually hurt your credit score. Before canceling any credit card, make sure of two factors:
Cancel credit cards with empty credit lines.
Don’t let a card issuer know that you are thinking of leaving until you have paid off the balance.



