Should I close the card once offer's up?

DaftMule

Hi all,

2 questions actually....I'm just getting into the whole "Card Tart" thing to move the debt from my recent wedding ( 8) ) . We have had the balance on the Halifax 1 card and it's 0% is just about to end. We have taken out an Egg card to transfer it onto for the next 9 month at 0% but.....

1) We don't intend to use the Halifax card again so should we just close it?

2) Does it finally catch up with you if you tart around enough ;D ?? i.e. will my credit rating suffer if I keep taking out new cards and then closing them once the special offer is over?

Also probably going to take out a Virgin card as I can use it to pay off the money remaining on my car loan. They will transfer the money into my current account which I can then use to pay off the loan. 0% for 9 months on teh Virgin card or 7.9% on the rest of the life of the loan....bit of a no-brainer really.

Milarky

There may be an 'upgrade' available from the HFX One card if you ask them. There may not of course, but if you can get a repeat offer it's better for you than applying for more cards. [Just ring them up and ask. But make sure you get a statement showing the current card at £nil before asking or you could get stung for a bit of interest.. happened to me!]

Cashback. If you have any one the card it doesn't get credited until the 13th month, I believe. By cancelling now you'll lose that I assume.

Virgin. Nothing wrong with 0% for 9 months, but you could spend that time looking for a low-rate 'life of balance' card to take some of that loan on at the end.

Capital One 0% for 18 Months - nearly as good - See the long thread on that. You mustn't already have one of their cards [so, an example of where it really does make sense to cancel!] I believe.

As to the effect of repeat applications... Applying for one card at a time is safest. They say over four applications per year [shown in searches mades] is flagged up, so applying once every 3 months or longer should cause you no real harm, hopefully.

Keeping some cards makes sense for various reasons

Separate cards for separate uses
Cards allow you to 'create' balances which you can then transfer
Special offers associated with some brands [I'd say most have repeat offers on some kind!]

Others have a 'hard headed' approach to cutting up cards as it were. Galstonian certainly does this, but I feel you need a 'positive' reason to cancel any given card, and should not do so automatically. Remember too, that you can generally ask for a credit limit to be reduced in order to allow larger limits on newly acquired cards.

Good luck

Hobo_2

HFX 1 Read this

http://forum.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Questions;action=display;num=1098467584

DaftMule

Thanks for the replies....forgot about the cash back thing. Gotta be worth hanging onto the card for that.

oscarhugo

Cancelling my cards doesn't really seem to have helped MY credit score which seems to be fairly well ----ed now by my stoozing & regular card applications over the last year or so. I cancelled a bunch of Halifax/BOS cards I had, also an RBS-AdvantaCard-metamorphosed-to-Mint plus an Alliance+Leicester & more recently an Abbey card that I'd had just for the 6 months' 0%. Oh - and a Marbles card as well.

I've recently been turned down (over a period of months) for Halifax One [twice], MBNA Platinum, Tesco, Scottish Widows, Goldfish and some others that I can't remember...

BUT! During the same period, I was accepted for Co-op Travel Visa , Sainsbury's Visa, MorganStanley and, just recently, HSBC's new Gold card!

So there doesn't seem to be an awful lot of rhyme or reason to the whole thing.

Oh, yes! I also applied for & got a c/l increase to my Egg card in time for the Anniversary Stooze!

Reaper

oscarhugo - there are 2 things at work here

1) Your total available credit limit
2) The number of recent credit searches

While you may have canceled some cards you then go on to list 10 cards you applied for "over a period of months" plus "some others I can't remember".

That's far too many and it is not surprising you are getting rejections. I'd urge you to stop applying for a lengthy period of time or you will rapidly run dry.

You say canceling cards did not help - I'd say it is the only reason you got any acceptances at all!

deemy2004

Cancelling my cards doesn't really seem to have helped MY credit score which seems to be fairly well ----ed now by my stoozing & regular card

You need to give it time and pace your applications.

Going on a card application binge with a lot of associated credit checks is probably the worst thing you can do as the refusal will be listed there. So 10 refusals in a row, no wonder your goign to find it tough gettign approved !

On your first refusal, should have taken that as a warning to back off for a while, at least 6 months !

WhoYa

Totaly agree with deemy2004 too many checks in a short period of time and especially several rejections will count against you, pacing out applications is probably the best aproach especially if your in it for the long hall.

realaledrinker

Your credit reference files only show some (not all) credit applications - those that result in a search. They do NOT show the outcome of those applications.

Margaret_Millne

My credit report, as sent to me, shows previous enquiries, together with "client name". Does this show on enquiries made by lenders? If so, surely a Credit Card Provider doing a search, and seeing, say, "Barclaycard" as a recent search, and then doesn't see "Barclaycard" as one of your cards will draw their own conclusion.

In other words, a refusal may not show up as such, but can be deduced from the information.