Credit Rating / Available Credit

Donkeywings

I wonder if anyone knows what effects having unused credit available has on your credit rating as opposed to cancelling the cards? Current c-rating is good and I want to maintain it.

I've used CCs for years, and have recently cleared all of them bar one, which is a 0% interest Virgin one with my last outstanding credit on it - around £3k used on a £18k limit. The £3k will be cleared before the 0% interest period expires. I never asked for an £18k limit, and won't be using it ever, so could reduce it right down to £3k limit if I wanted to. I have another 2 credit cards with about £5K 'available' but £0 used on each - I only use one and pay off in full every month, so the interest rate is irrelevent.

So, at the minute, with a £3k balance on a total of £28k available, I'm using about 11% of my available credit. If I cancelled one card, and reduced the credit limit of the £18k one to £5k, I'd still have the same 'used' amount of credit, but my 'available' credit would be £10k, so I'd now be using 30% of my available instead of 11%.

Am I best off showing as using a lower % of a higher available, or reducing my available which will increase the % used?