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The last factor is not unnecessarily opening and closing credit accounts. Credit applications create hard inquiries on your credit report. When a potential lender checks your credit report during the application process it creates a small negative impact which can lower your score. Although an occasional hard inquiry may not affect your score, many of these inquiries over an extended period could prove to be detrimental.
On the other hand, closing current accounts eliminate the credit levels that go with them, thus reducing your overall credit availability. This will increase your utilization ratio and drive down your rating. Therefor, if you already hold several credit cards and are up to date on the payments and have low fees associated with them, you are better off simply holding them in reserve.These will keep your credit level high.
With these tips in mind, every consumer should be able to raise their credit rating and keep their credit score high enough to get better rates from lenders.