Based on your financial expertise, provide your response or viewpoint on the given financial question or topic. The response format is open.

Old Cancelled Cards
Closed accounts are used when calculating Average Age of Accounts (AAoA) by FICO. They will drop off your report 7 years after their closure, at which time your AAoA will decrease and most likely lower your credit score. Keeping your oldest card with an annual fee (AF) is a tough question. Since the exact calculations are a secret, it's hard to quantify the value of that card. Keep in mind that if you do decide to close it now (or right before the next AF) it will continue to count for the next 7 years. What you can do is the following: Assume you won't be applying for any new cards in the next 7 years. Look at all your current accounts and calculate the AAoA of all of them that would still be on your report 7 years from now. Calculate it with and without your oldest card. The difference will show you the effect closing the card today will have. There is a potential way to raise your AAoA depending on if you have an AMEX card. AMEX reports all accounts as being open from your original 'member since' date. If your oldest AMEX (ever, not necessarily still open) is older than your AAoA, opening a new AMEX will actually raise your average.  age of accounts is 15% of your score. note that some websites that calculate your AAoA for you (like creditkarma) don't count closed accounts, but since FICO does the age those websites generate should be ignored.