Have I ooopsed already?

InMyDreams

Maybe one of you good people could cast a more experienced eye over my efforts so far…

Status as of last week…
Dh (main household income) has no cc or savings in his name.
Mortgage is joint. 2yrs left on current deal.
We have two joint current accounts, although only use one (HSBC).
I have an egg savings (I don’t pay tax) and an egg cc (green) with dh as additional card holder. This has a £2.5K limit and is paid off in full every month. I had to fight hard to get this limit a few years ago as I have negligible income, but it was gradually increased from £500.

The story so far…
• End of last week I applied for the A&L current and saver account (nothing to do with stoozing, but seems better than current setup). I stupidly accepted the cc too. But presumably they would have credit checked me anyway. Don’t know limit yet but don’t intend to use it anyway, and will cancel.
• Monday – Dh applied for Amex platinum (again not for stoozing, but can’t believe we’ve been putting up with measly cashback rates for so long). Had to be him to satisfy income criteria. Me as additional card holder. Will get limit lowered to £2.5K, assuming it’s going to be more.
• Thursday – I applied for Egg money to get a mule ready for stoozing. No additional card.

At some point soon I want to ‘refer’ dh for another A&L current account (to earn us £100 and qualify us for a second 10% regular saver, albeit taxed this time) but don’t want to rush too many credit checks. We obviously also need to get dh at least one 0% card to start stoozing with. Planning to start with HSBC as already a customer and they have 9months 0% and no BT fee this month.

So, have I oopsed already? And am I getting carried away and trying to do too much in one go?

I already checked with HSBC that if dh gets their card, he will be able to BT from a cc in my name (hence why *I* took out the egg money card to minimise credit checks on dh and I’m already an egg customer) but reading through old posts here, I’m now worried that the credit limit I get for egg money (which I assumed was unimportant) will also be a limiting factor in how much positive balance I can get away with piling onto it in one go.

Is there any disadvantage to keeping on applying for cards until we are refused, and then stop for a while? Or should we quit while we’re ahead for now?

If you’ve got to the end of this… Thanks!
IMD.

YorkshireBoy

To be honest, I don't think you've done enough reading up on the subject before starting out. It seems very disorganised to me, for instance...

• the A&L credit card is 0% for 9 months and a mule and you've already had a credit search - and you don't intend to keep it. Why?
  
• You have an Egg Card already. Why do you need Egg Money instead of another 0% BT card at this early stage of your stoozing, especially as you applied for the A&L card already?
  
• Current account searches 'count' as well. The more of these you have, the more impact they will have on your ability to obtain credit cards.
  
• The credit limit on your Egg Money card plays no part at all in the amount of 'positive' credit you can put on it.

It's your own decision as to whether to stop applying, or 'go for broke'. However, I'd say you ought to consider slowing down a little and do a little planning and preparation, bearing in mind my earlier points. Have you read all the available material on the subject?

InMyDreams

Well I consider myself truly put in my place!

YorkshireBoy wrote:

Have you read all the available material on the subject?

Err… I feel like I’m reading the same things over and over now, so maybe it’s just starting to confuse me.

YorkshireBoy wrote:

[*]the A&L credit card is 0% for 9 months and a mule and you've already had a credit search - and you don't intend to keep it. Why?

Because I applied for the A&L accounts primarily for the saving potential as I’m not a tax-payer. I wasn’t planning on getting the cc card too, but for some reason changed my mind at the last minute seeing the 0% and thinking that I might as well make most use out of my credit check. How is it a mule? I thought it was only the pre-pay credit cards that could work like this, otherwise what’s so special about the egg money? I don’t intend to keep it because I’m expecting a pointless <£500 credit limit if I get one at all, as it’s in my name.

YorkshireBoy wrote:

[*]You have an Egg Card already. Why do you need Egg Money instead of another 0% BT card at this early stage of your stoozing, especially as you applied for the A&L card already?

Well I’ve clearly misunderstood big time. According to
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1076883546,34894,#middle Egg money is essential unless I can find a card that will SBT or I’m happy just drip-feeding my stooze pot. My egg card only has a limit of 2.5K. Which I guess is better than nothing, and I might as well utilise on it’s anniversary, but was hoping to start with a bit more as it’s not really worth it without the anniversary deal.

Thanks for the fast (as ever!) response though, even if I am left feeling a little thick :rolleyes:

YorkshireBoy

You can mule with the Egg Card (using +ve balances), as long as you're outside months 2-5 of your anniversary period. It's unlikely that you'll alert the 'fraud squad' if you're expecting such low limits on your new cards.

I'm assuming your Egg Card is pre-May 1st, or if post-May 1st that you are outside the introductory period? If so, you can (S)BT for free as long as there aren't any 'special promotions' applying to your account at the time.

You can create a debt on the A&L card by writing yourself a cheque (if you've got the new 'money transfer' definition in your T&C's - otherwise do a normal SBT to your current account) for a 2% (max £50) fee. Then repay the debt with a BT to a new card. Re-create the debt with another cheque and so on for the whole 9 month period (or until you run out of cheques, or new cards!). Outside the A&L introductory period, I've heard of people using +ve balances on here and asking for a BACS transfer. I wouldn't do it with £10K but you're expecting much lower limits than that by the sound of it.

Finally, you're not 'thick'. I just felt that I couldn't see a strategy, and that you were going too fast. And never, ever apply for a card and then not go through with it* - it's simply wasting a credit search.

* Unless of course it's just not financially viable, ie ridiculously low limit with BT fees.

InMyDreams

YorkshireBoy wrote:

You can mule with the Egg Card (using +ve balances), as long as you're outside months 2-5 of your anniversary period.

I've had an egg card since 2001, but for some reason account numbers have changed over the years, latest in 2004. I think that counts as a new card, which would make my aniversary in Sept. I vaguley remember the aniversary deal think but pretty much ignored it last year. That makes January month five, but presumiably irrelevant since I didn't make use of the offer. :doh:

YorkshireBoy wrote:

It's unlikely that you'll alert the 'fraud squad' if you're expecting such low limits on your new cards.

Well that's the thing - I'm not expecting small limits on my husband's cards. They were the ones I was planning to stooze with.

And now this is where my head starts to hurt. By (S)BT with the egg card, you mean getting it into a positive balance, then transfering that balance to my bank account? And to get it into a positive balance, I would use another card (any with 0%BT offers, except no benefit using A&L as I can just as well write myself cheques with that one anyway) to pay of an imaginary debt on it with another BT.

OK - and I now see how the A&L could also be used as as a mule, but I'd be stung for the whole 2% each time as such small amounts, then potentially another fee to the new card to transfer the debt elsewhere in order to repeat the process. Seems like a lot of messing about for little gain, and would require another card to BT with too.

YorkshireBoy wrote:

but you're expecting much lower limits than that by the sound of it

well no, not on the cards I was planning to stooze with.

LOL at no stategy and going too fast. I hadn't really considered that I'd even started yet. (I hadn't thought of A&L or my old egg account, or the Amex as anything to do with stoozing. At least the egg not initially) All I'd done was apply for the egg money (that I'd been led to believe was the best first move regardless) and was in the process of trying to formulate the rest of my 'strategy'.

Ho hum. At least I'm not 'thick' :j

YorkshireBoy

Hi IMD

It's becoming a lot clearer now. You're right to go with Egg Money, and good luck with the high limits you're chasing for hubby's cards.

I don't do cashback, as I'd rather use all my available credit for 'fast stoozing', with a little 'slow stoozing' by spending my minimum payments (and BT'ing them back to the stooze pot where I can) to keep the balances topped up wherever possible.

We're fortunate in that we only have 2 cards (out of 10) that we can't do anything with after the initial BT, but these only require 2% minimum payments so it's not too bad.

Best of luck
YorkshireBoy

bilbo_2

if you have had say 6 or 7 credit searches over a 1 month period I take it that it will harm your credit rating ??

if so how long does it take to repair if no further credit searches are done in the next 6 months ??

Clariman

bilbo wrote:

if you have had say 6 or 7 credit searches over a 1 month period I take it that it will harm your credit rating ??

if so how long does it take to repair if no further credit searches are done in the next 6 months ??

There are 2 aspects to this. Firstly, the number of searches may make the stoozer look desperate for credit. Credit searches are typically be kept on file for 12 months, so they will not be seen after that. However, lenders usually look at the last 3 to 6 months of searches when making a lending decision, so most of the damage will be undone in 6 months.

The second aspect to this is that those 6 or 7 searches probably resulted in some new credit accounts, so having higher available credit and more accounts will have a negative effect which will be longer lasting.

There is a major article on credit scoring on the stoozing website which answers these types of questions.

Clariman