If you are looking to make a large purchase like a house or a car or a camper or boat - you do not want to have a large amount of available credit open to you because when they determine how much credit they can allow you they will count all those cards with available credit as if you had them fully loaded to the max - because the potential is there for you to do so. You need to close those unused cards before applying for any large purchases.
<h5>The only time it is good to have open cards you are not using is if you carry a balance month to month because then the credit you are using is a lower % of the total available to you. However, I think we all know it is a very bad idea to carry credit over from month to month in the first place, except for very large purchases like home improvements , mortgages , cars - things of that nature.</h5>