Doug, you asked if "cancelling a card, in and of itself, has some negative affect on your credit report".

The short answer is, "it depends". :) Here are a couple of rules of thumb:

-Keep older cards over newer cards. Older cards help the total and average age of your credit profile, and are desirable for this reason.

-Keep higher limit cards over lower limit cards. Higher limits show others have trusted you with more credit, which is one indicator of creditworthiness. Also, higher limits will improve your "utilization" ratios, increasing your score.

-Keep "prime" cards, as opposed to subprime, secured, store, or gas cards. If you have good credit and several bank cards from the major issuers, their may be little reason to keep sub-prime or merchant-specifc cards, and cancelling those might help you in the long run. A common exception to this rule of thumb would be if the less desirable cards were easily your oldest cards.