[Kavvy]

Good morning,

When typing this email out I sort of went off on a tangent on why I want a specific card, so I hid it as to not waste peoples time:

Spoiler!

I am trying to get the most bang for my buck from my credit card. I am currently with RBC I Rewards. I get 1 point for every 2 dollars I spend. It is difficult to compare travel cards to reward cards to cash back cards, so I try to scale everything to how much bang for the buck I get. I.e., with travel rewards, 100 points give me $1, so i get 0.5% cash back, but restricted to only travel.

The Aviaon card from RBC gives 1% cash back, but restricted to travel and I believe you have to use there redemption schedule, meaning if you find a better deal then the max purchase price of a ticket (which is the 1%), the bank still charges the same amount of points for the tickets.

So I decided I wanted a cash back card, money is better then rewards. Based on my spending habits, the Scotia $99 cash back card is the best for me and I was wondering if people could clear up a couple credit rating misconceptions for me:

• According to Wikipedia (for the US), the age of your credit affects your credit rating. The age is dependent on your average age of credit open, and the oldest account you have on your credit report. I am switching banks, so my plan was to use the new cash back card as my primary, but leave the old account active to keep my "credit age" as old as possible. Does this make sense?
• I was going to lower my old credit card limit to $1000-$2000 to reduce my open credit. However, I read that having large credit over a long peorid helps your rating. My plan would be to lower it prior to getting pre approved for a bank mortage. Does this make sense? Does haveing credit you don't use hurt the rating?

Thank you!

Kavy