I just had an interesting experience with Chase and it wasn't a pleasant experience. I've been an account holder for many, many years and I had a credit card I carried a balance on. They slashed my available credit to just above my outstanding balance. This was a HUGE decrease in my credit line. Not that I wanted to use it, but it just whacked my FICO score because it appears I am now 'maxed out' on that card. Apparently this is how Chase thanks its valued customers. =(

I had taken advantage of a very attractive Balance Transfer offer with another company at 1.99%. Since I loaded all my outstanding balances onto this card, Chase concluded that I was now a high risk because I had a card that was at its limit. They kindly lowered my limit on their card, so now I have TWO cards at their limits. Mind you, I'm one of the few who is actually paying my credit card bills these days, compared to so many who are in default. I didn't like the way Chase manipulated my account and hurt my credit score.

The lesson is...if you're applying for a mortgage, keep all of your credit card balances where they are, even if the interest rates are higher. Try to keep your oustanding balances below 30% of the available credit limit on all cards. That seems to be a magic number in credit scoring.

Once you get your mortgage in place, then you can adjust the balances to take advantage of more attractive rates.

One more tip...don't close any accounts you don't use unless you have a phenomenon called "too much available credit". If you close an account, it raises the amount of your outstanding balance compared to your amount of available credit.