Close or accept offer from Mint?

paulburns1984

Hi All,
quick history of me,

No credit card up until i was around 22, wanted to get a credit rating for future so used Capital one Classic Card.

Spent £15 a month on it for a year, payed off in full every month. After a year applied for best 0% purchases card at the time, MINT, got 9 months interest free.
Cancelled Capital One Card.
Used card for necessary purchases of around £1800. paid minimum or slightly more each month, so no credit rating drop.
Applied for Barclaycard with interest free till March 09, At end of 6month on mint card, BTed to Barclaycard. Still paying off minimum each month.

Called today to cancel my Mint card and they said why, I said because my interest free period had gone, they said because I had conducted myself well (salesman speak i know), they would give me 0.66% interest a month on it.

Basically I want to purchase something for around £150-200 and pay off in a few months, i have two options.


a) Stay with new mint offer, and make purchase, pay off fully in 3 months, with minimums till then and swallow £10ish of interest.

or

b) cancel and apply for new purchases card, but seems pointless since with the credit crunch, chance I may not get new card and its only £150.

What do you reckon? and sorry for the long story lol!

Richard019

I would apply for the new purchases card without cancelling the Mint card. I don't know what your earnings are but you're only a year or so younger than me and your available credit (going by balances) is very low compared to mine so unless there's something else (ie late payments) you should be able to get more.

I would also wait until January/February and see what offers Halifax are offering on balance transfers at the time. I suspect if you say you want to close your Mint account to reduce you available credit before applying for a Halifax card you might get a better deal than you've been offered. I don't know how far it extends within the company but from speaking to staff from both banks at RBS (the bank behind Mint), HBOS (Halifax) is something of a 'dirty word' and vice versa. You might find you can wangle a BT offer for that Barclaycard balance.

paulburns1984

Wouldn't it be too much hassle messing around with new passwords and such, just for the £10ish of interest, plus if I apply and get rejected thats gonna look bad on my credit history/rating

Im 24, last year uni student, going to be starting a £23000 job next year but currently only working part time on £250 a month

paulburns1984

bump

can someone pls help me here?

[Deleted User]

In your shoes, I would choose option (a) and save the credit search for a card that will save you more than a tenner.

ldn-100

paulburns1984 wrote: »

plus if I apply and get rejected thats gonna look bad on my credit history/rating

Searches are only held on file for 12 months and the outcome of the application is not recorded with the search. Additionally you would need to be making 2+ applications a month to have an impact. Apply for the better credit and should you not get it you have your existing card as a back up plan.

jonesMUFCforever

.66% a month is around 8% APR so not a good deal really. There are better out there.