Deck of cards

g002ahe

I got good limits on all of my applications -
card # 8 - which i applied for about 6 weeks after card number 1 was ok ( limit of 7k - marbles )

I personally think the most important measure is credit limit versus salary. Im not sure that several searches 6 months ago will score too badly on most scorecards. - too complex a measure for consistent decisions for one thing.

I havnt seen many posts here - or on rpoints or TMF forums - of card being refused based upon searches that long ago

Rover

magician64 wrote:

Have just got a One account mortgage and I'm looking to stooze some cash to reduce the interest.

I have a decent crdit rating, and won't be applying for a new mortgage soon.

So how many credit cards am I likely to be allowed to hold before I start getting refusals?

Exactly what I started doing around 6 months ago with my FD off-set mortgage.
I have for the last 5 months been paying £40 a month interest on my mortgage instead of ~£220. And I have now 'accumulated' >£10k in an egg interest bearing account also.

As others have said, it will obviously become more difficult to sustain the juggling act as deals run out, but i perceive no short problems. Bottom line is, they can have the money back tomorrow if required and I'll still have saved a significant amount of money!

Cards with the best credit limit, in my experience, were MBNA (or affiliates), First Direct and Halifax.

westernpromise

deemy2004 wrote:

yes, the problem the person will find is even if he does get cards he applies for in say 3-9 months time, the limits will be nothing like what he is getting now. Its far better to get one good limit card then 5 low limit cards.

So it is better to be paitient and pace the applications....

It's not necessarily clear that this is better.

Let's say you apply for 2 or 3 cards and renew them every 6 to 9 months. If there is a finite supply of 0% underlying lenders, say 20, then all that will happen is that you'll exhaust them more slowly. You'll take ~4 years to get through them all and your interest gains will be spread out over 4 years.

If you went for all 20 at once - not that you can, but just for purposes of illustration - then you'd probably get more credit in total and would earn all your free interest in the first 6 to 9 months. You'd then have no cards left to play after 6 months, but that's OK; you cancel them all and reapply as a new customer 6 or 9 months later and do it all again.

So what one has to compare is whether it's better to have 2 or 3 cards for 4 years, after which you go back to the beginning and start reapplying for the cards you first held; or whether it's better to hold 10 cards for 6 months out of every year, also going back to the beginning and reapplying for old cards when you've exhausted the supply.

Which of these is better must hinge on your credit status, the level of credit limit you get, and the current and future inclination of lenders to identify, discriminate against, stoozers. Personally I am betting that serial card tarts are going to get spotted so I am using up the bullets as fast as I can, while I still can.

Reaper

The trouble with applying for lots at once is searches. By applying for them all in one go you do have one advantage - the credit card companies won't have had time to update the CRAs with details of your credit limits and debt. However those searches will apear straight away any lender seeing half a dozen searches in as many days is going to be very wary.

From what they have said I think you will find that the big long term stoozers round here (eg Clariman, Galstonian) pace themselves and only apply for new cards slowly, as do I. Rapid applications run the risk of drying up later.

Galstonian

Do I like being called a "big stoozer"? Hmmmm...

Reaper

Lol. Big as in successful, not big as in your piggie bank icon!

g002ahe

As I said, i'm happy right now but take your warnings to mind...

I havnt yet touched mint, first direct or IF and hope to get OK limits off them in 6-9 months wehen I need them.

£78k limits so far, i may need to dip down in 6 months but should be a short term 'problem' at worst, at best it won't happen.

Does this make me a fairly big-ish stoozer if only for the short term???

Reaper

g002ahe wrote:

Does this make me a fairly big-ish stoozer if only for the short term???

It does. However the point I was making is that it is easy to be a big stoozer, easy to be a long term stoozer, but hard to be both.

g002ahe

good point - and i hope - possibly against the odds - to be lucky in the long term...

Nobody knows the rules of this game. But I know least of all!

deemy2004

westernpromise wrote:

It's not necessarily clear that this is better.

Let's say you apply for 2 or 3 cards and renew them every 6 to 9 months. If there is a finite supply of 0% underlying lenders, say 20, then all that will happen is that you'll exhaust them more slowly. You'll take ~4 years to get through them all and your interest gains will be spread out over 4 years.

The overall credit limit is likely to be lower than when the cards are spread out, so you get more credit by spreading out applications.