Question: Does it hurt your credit to open a store credit card to get the 15% discount and then close it right away? Or is there a certain amount of time you should leave it open for?

Answer: People tend to have more credit today and to shop for credit - via the internet and other channels-more frequently than ever.  FICO scores reflect this reality.  However, research shows that opening several credit accounts in a short period of time does represent greater risk - especially for people who do not have a long established credit history.\n\nMultiple credit requests also represent greater credit risk.  However, FICO scores do a good job of distinguishing between a search for many new credit accounts and rate shopping for one new account.  Your FICO score takes into account:\n\n1) How many new accounts you have.  Your FICO score looks at how many new accounts you have by type of account (for example, how many newly opened credit cards you have).  It also may look at how many of your accounts are new accounts.\n2) How long it has been since you opened a new account.  Your FICO score may consider this information for specific types of accounts.\n3) How many recent requests for credit you have made, as indicated by inquiries to the credit reporting agencies.  Inquiries remain on your credit report for two years, although FICO scores only consider inquiries from the last 12 months.  FICO scores have been carefully designed to count only those inquiries that truly impact credit risk.\n4) Length of time since credit report inquiries were made by lenders.\n\nSo in summary, if it's been some time since your last new line of credit was opened, or you last applied for a dept store card, opening and promptly closing a new account will more than likely not dramatically impact your score. On the other hand, if you plan on doing this regularly, I would recommend just waiting for the store sales to get that extra 15% off. Good luck!
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