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Do adults seriously lack this willpower to not use a card because it's open??!
Yes. (j/k)
When you've fallen on hard times and you still have to put food on the table and get the bills paid sometimes you do things you'd never have done otherwise.....things like leaning on the card (or 3 in my case). If there was no card to lean on another solution would have to be found. Said solution would likely be better than maxing out your cards....
...you know....so long as it wasn't robbing a bank or convenience store, selling drugs, or prostituting yourself out.
I keep a pretty close watch on my credit report and score. Last year I did a big clean up in anticipation of getting divorced and got rid of many things that were hanging around and old joint accounts that we didn't even remember having. Looking at things today I see that I have a ton of available credit in my name but my score could be higher if I didn't have so many CC's so I'll be closing out another one that I opened fairly recently, for a discount or something, and just to keep things managable. I have all the big cards (Visa, MC, Discover, AMEX) but I only need one of each, and a couple store cards that offer good deals when I use them. That's enough.
Also, in the last couple of months two of our CC's and even our ATM card were closed and replced by the issuer because they of some security breach somewhere. The less I have to worry about that the better.
When you've fallen on hard times and you still have to put food on the table and get the bills paid sometimes you do things you'd never have done otherwise.....things like leaning on the card (or 3 in my case). If there was no card to lean on another solution would have to be found. Said solution would likely be better than maxing out your cards....
...you know....so long as it wasn't robbing a bank or convenience store, selling drugs, or prostituting yourself out.
No, no.. don't worry, you're not the type of person I'm speaking of.
It's the "I make $80k/year...after expenses I have $30k/year left over...let me spend $50k/year left on junk and charge it to my credit card...because I have the credit line! I'll figure out how to pay if off later" -type people I'm talking about.
I'd cancel the RS card and open up a VISA. They are accepted more widely than AmEx. If you are concerned about the credit history keep the AmEx until you have the VISA a few years, then go to one card (if you wish).
AmEx charges some pretty exorbitant merchant fees thus a good deal of smaller (and even some larger) companies choose not to accept it. We don't accept it in our business for this reason (and they have a longer period of waiting to get your funds as opposed to Visa and MC).
A local garden center I frequent, several restaurants we go to as well as a small grocer I frequent are places I can think of off-hand that doesn't accept AmEx. Our health insurance (Blue Shield) doesn't take it either.
It's nothing to do with Philadelphia vs. anywhere else, USA. It's just your personal experience in which companies/businesses you patronize--there's no difference in the merchant fees for AmEx in different parts of the country, it's high across the board, regardless of the locale.
Trust me, overall, and statistically speaking, AmEx (and Discover as well) is less accepted than Visa or MC.
But...obviously, if you haven't come across any issue with where you shop not accepting it, then stay with it.
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(j/k)
