<prompt> Human: I have a few credit cards that I picked up about 7 years ago that I am paying a monthly charge on to keep open. These were through First Premier Bank, Credit One, and Merrick Bank, and I opened them specifically to rebuilt credit. I have one card that I opened a few months prior to these that I currently use for daily expenditures, so closing any of these cards would not be closing my oldest one. My credit has greatly improved aside from a drop from multiple hard pulls when I financed my car last April. One caveat is that my utilization is a little high 44 - I am carrying a decent sized balance on two credit cards at 0 - Ive been paying the minimum payment for these while also saving an additional 3x that and have enough to pay one off next month and the other in August.Im closing the card with First Premier Bank because the fees are astronomical 10.40 billed monthly plus something like 80 at the end of the year... On a zero balance. but Im not sure what the impact of closing the other two will be. Credit One charges 8mo, Merrick charges 4mo. My limits are 1500 and 1000 respectively. I estimate that my utilization would go up approximately 15 if I closed all three of these cards.I plan on having all credit card debt paid off by the end of this year and applying for a mortgage early next year. Is there an optimal strategy when closing credit cards? My oldest line is with my primary bank and will remain open, I have other credit cards that Ive been using responsibly... Just trying to look at the 12 month plan.Is it worth paying 12mo to boost your available credit by 10-15?More specifically: Does anyone have an idea what the impact on my score would be if I closed all three of these at once?  <response>: Call and ask if you can product change the cards into something with no annual fee. If not, cancel them. 