New Cards - Cancel Old Ones ?

Hartley10

Hi. Like many people when I get to the end of a promotional rate I am taking a new card with 0% balance transfer. I will be up to 5 credit cards shortly, 3 of which will have nil balance, 1 with £300 on it and 1 with £1,250 (0% interest).

My question is:-

a)should i cancel the old cards - any advantage / disadvantage of doing so ?
b) anyone got any guidance on maximum number of cards you should have ?

Thanks

digitalphase

What cards are they? Personally I'd cancel the ones with a low limit and zero balance, just keep the cards with a higher limit.

Virgin/MBNA tend to do good offers for existing customers, so a good card to keep I believe.

Moggles_2

The national average is five, so if you have five credit cards or fewer and none is maxed out, it's unlikely your credit rating would be harmed by keeping these cards, unless you have a lower than average annual income. That said, with each successful credit card application, your available credit will increase in relation to your income and there will come a point when you must consider closure.

As above, I think you have to treat each credit card on its own merits. IME, some card companies (eg. Barclaycard, MBNA) have regular, existing-customer offers. Others (eg. HBOS, HSBC) reserve their best deals for new applicants. Also, I would think twice about closing Egg or my last MBNA card (eg. MBNA itself, Virgin) as these allow you to route funds via your current account at balance transfer rates.

anna42hmr

i agree each card should be looked at individually,

for example do you travel a lot if you have a card that doesnt charge for foreign use ie post office, santander zero etc, keep that.
if you have a capital one platinum card, you can get free credit reports via experien or equifax (cant remember which)
some companies have loyaty points (airmiles, tesco points etc) or cash back.

jazzyjay2006xx

I have 3 credit cards one of which I would like to transfer the balance to another.... I have bad credit what can I do...

Moggles_2

jazzyjay2006xx wrote: »

I have 3 credit cards, one of which I would like to transfer the balance to another. I have bad credit what can I do?

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Hartley10

Thanks for the replies. I have the following cards:-

Mint - £600 limit - nil balance - think i will cancel this one
Post Office MCard - £3,500 limit - nil balance
Cap One Platinum - £1,600 limit - £300 balance - will be paid off end of month
Virgin - £4,500 limit - £1,250 - balance going to new card
Nationwide - new one - £7,500 limit - will transfer virgin balance at 0%

I was going to get rid of Capital One due to the higher interest notification just received and the Mint card in view of lower limit leaving Virgin & Nationwide. Not sure about Post Office card ?

anna42hmr

Hartley10 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. I have the following cards:-

Mint - £600 limit - nil balance - think i will cancel this one
Post Office MCard - £3,500 limit - nil balance
Cap One Platinum - £1,600 limit - £300 balance - will be paid off end of month
Virgin - £4,500 limit - £1,250 - balance going to new card
Nationwide - new one - £7,500 limit - will transfer virgin balance at 0%

I was going to get rid of Capital One due to the higher interest notification just received and the Mint card in view of lower limit leaving Virgin & Nationwide. Not sure about Post Office card ?

do you go on holiday out of europe, if so i would say keep the post office card, as nationwide have started charging for out of europe now (1% i think)

capital one - do you make use of the free credit reports via equifax http://www.equifax.co.uk/capitalone/index.html (2 free credit reports a year and update alert emails for credit report changes etc) if so you will loose that on cancellation

mint - allows you to reapply after 9 months any way (or did when i cancelled my mint one last year) not to mention i held their card for years and was given very few existing customer offers)

virgin (and other mbna cards) often have good existing customer offers