How short is 'too short'?

Hurri

Apologies if this is in the wrong place, I guess it fits a host of sub-forums.

We often see advice to spread out applications for bank accounts etc, and not do too many in a short period of time.

How is this defined? Not too many in a few hours? A week? Month? 6 months?

Reason I'm asking is in April I opened a Halifax Reward account and took out my first credit card.

I'm also looking for a Vantage account ultimately, but don't want to hammer my credit rating with too many searches.

Thanks!

Lokolo

A current account won't really matter. It's only if you are applying for credit - so loans, overdrafts, CCs and such.

I've got 2 credit cards in the last 6 months without a problem (and one is £1100 0% on a £5k salary!)

Hurri

Thanks for that. I thought perhaps that the number of searches could still have an impact - I know Halifax scored me when taking out the account.

Lokolo

Yep it will, you'll usually get 2 searches. An identity search, which will show on your report, but other banks won't see these, only yourself. Then theres full credit searches, which will show. However, it should really only effect if you are trying to get credit in 3-4 places at once.

stator

Get a copy of your credit report for £2 and see how many searches there are. If there are only a few and they are spread out over the past year then it shouldn't really be a problem.