Three Cards, which two to ditch?

GreyPilgrim

Lucky enough to be debt free at the end of July! :T I'll be left with three credit cards: Mint, Egg and Barclaycard.

Mint and Egg will have 0 balances on them.
Barclaycard is my main card, and I use it as a charge card - live off it during the month, then pay it off in full so I don't incur any interest.

After July I want to ditch two of cards (get them out of reach of temptation) and only have one card , which I'll use as my 'main' card. Question is, do you think it's worth haggling amongst the three to try and get a lower APR? I know the APR is irrelevant as I pay it off in full anyway, but I would rather have as low as possible a rate just in case I do overspend.

I'm just wondering from your experiences whether card companies actually bite at this. I've hardly been barclaycards best customer as they're not had any interest off me for the past two years. (I can imagine them jumping at the chance to ditch me!).

Another thing is that Barclaycard has the highest APR of the three but I've been with them for about seven years....(Mint and Egg were only recent, purely for balance transfers)...and the naive part of me thinks that being a customer for so long must count for something...I don't just want to close my account and end that record.

But I suppose thats stupid. Logical part tells me to ditch the two highest APR's and stick with Mint...Or do you think it's worth haggling to try and get Barclaycard to lower their APR?

Sherman_Oaks

Loyalty, yes I know it's a word of the past, absolutely counts for nothing. See to number one first everytime. Don't give a fig about the card co's because they sure as hell don't give 2 hoots about the likes of you and me. They're out for the money, pure and simple, and as long as the punter keeps coughing up every month they're happy.

Go for what works out the cheapest all round. Staying with any card company, just like insurance companies, will get you paying more than you should be. What better source of income than the ones you know always stay with you and keep paying?

I perosnally have no credit cards, no loans and I paid my mortgage off 3 years ago. I can tell you that I have never had more money to myself and I thoroughly enjoy paying for everything cash, not to mention seeing the nest egg increase nicely every month, instead of the greedy financial outfits and their fat cats benefitting of what I & yourselves work hard for. I am 23 years away from the current age of retirement and with the state of things, especially pensions, I intend to enjoy what I work hard for.

I have just applied for a prepaid card which will suit my needs.

roswell

why not get a egg money card or similar that pays cashback for your "Main spend" and ditch all 3 ...

with egg money you can prepay it get 4.9% int on credit balances and 6.9% apr on negative balances, they pay 1 % cash back each year in march upto £200

GreyPilgrim

Sherman_Oaks wrote:

Loyalty, yes I know it's a word of the past, absolutely counts for nothing. See to number one first everytime. Don't give a fig about the card co's because they sure as hell don't give 2 hoots about the likes of you and me. They're out for the money, pure and simple, and as long as the punter keeps coughing up every month they're happy.

Go for what works out the cheapest all round. Staying with any card company, just like insurance companies, will get you paying more than you should be. What better source of income than the ones you know always stay with you and keep paying?

I perosnally have no credit cards, no loans and I paid my mortgage off 3 years ago. I can tell you that I have never had more money to myself and I thoroughly enjoy paying for everything cash, not to mention seeing the nest egg increase nicely every month, instead of the greedy financial outfits and their fat cats benefitting of what I & yourselves work hard for. I am 23 years away from the current age of retirement and with the state of things, especially pensions, I intend to enjoy what I work hard for.

I have just applied for a prepaid card which will suit my needs.

Cheers Sherman. I know deep down loyalty counts for nothing, I just liked the romantic notion that it did.

In a way, I like the idea of paying for everything by cash - it actually makes me 'feel' like I'm spending the money because you can see yourself handing over the notes...with plastic there's always been a tendency not to appreciate how much I'm spending (I'm slowly changing my ways).

However as I said I've gotten into the habit of living off the credit card and paying it off at the end of the month. I figure the longer my salary sits in my bank, the better it is for me (may only be a couple of pence, but I'm drilling into myself that every penny saved on every aspect of my life is a bonus). I also like the thought of screwing barclaycard by never letting them charge me interest.

So common sense prevails! I'll phone all three soon, see if I can get a reduction in APR's. Otherwise will ditch the two highest APR's.

Will look at the egg money card too

Cheers for the replies guys.

Ali-OK

Barclaycard are dreadful! I've been a customer of theirs for over 20 years - it counts for nothing. I've always paid my bill on time with them, because their APR has always been a high one, but when they couldn't offer anything decent on a BT, I ditched them.

Now it's taking months for them to show it as settled on my credit report. :mad:

Put you first - get the best you can.

mintymoneysaver

I'd suggest ditching all of them and getting a cashback card if yu are going to pay it all off every month.Yhen you won't pay any interest and they'll pay you.We have one with Halifax but tI'm sure there is a list of the best ones on here somewghere.

The_Boss

Have you checked your credit file to see if the Barclaycard appears on your file? If you got it that long ago, it might not. This would be a very good reason to keep it as it is useful for future reasons to have 'unreported credit'.

The Egg card provides a SBT facility and can be used as a mule card, so is also very good.

I'd just cancel the Mint card to be honest, unless the Barclaycard does appear on the CRA files in which case you have a decision to make. Then ask for an Egg money card. Then only use the Egg money card. Keeping the cards open will show a long history of good payments, so its not the end of the world.

Also, take a look at this : http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=175234