I have read a few of the posts on this forum regarding improvement of credit scores, and I couldn't seem to find an answer to my inquiry (but perhaps I didn't look hard enough).

I am very fortunate and do not have the serious credit issues that other members have candidly shared with this forum. I graduated from college with a credit card from Chase bank (it was then still Bank One) with a credit Limit of $500. Nothing big. I moved apartments and summer life got the best of me and I missed two months of payments. I then paid the card off completely and didn't think there would be any problems (I wasn't aware of credit bureaus or scores or anything) because I had paid the card off. For some time I didn't even use the card, and when I signed onto my account on chase.com it would display my checking/savings and credit card right there. Finally one day I went to use it and it did not work, that is how I found out the card had been closed. I again didn't think this would be a big deal and I went to reopen a credit card with them, and was denied. After this embarassment I began to learn about credit scores and have been working to rebuild my credit.

According to creditkeeper.com my current scores with the three unions are:

Equifax: 677
Experian: 674
TransUnion: 631 (this is the union that was most affected by my credit mishap, about 6 months ago it was in the 300ish range)

My credit is getting better and I am very good about paying my bills on time. In terms of credit I had a card through Capitol One which I just consolidated with another cap 1 card and the credit limit is 1,750, and has an APR of 10.31%. I also have a BP card through Chase with a credit limit of 300 but has a pretty high APR at 23.24%. I have just opened a new mastercard that has a credit limit of only 300 but a 0% APR for a year. I opened these two cards to help improve my credit score, but I would rather only have two open. My first choice would be to close the BP card due to the high APR, but since it is with chase and therefore TransUnion, would closing the card lower my credit score with TransUnion? Would it be a smarter move to try to consolidate all of my cards into one (the card with the 0% APR)? I am new to all of this and any advice is appreciated.

Thank you.