To cancel credit cards or not! Help Please

kazd

Hello everybody, I have been advised to post my question in here re cancelling my credit cards. I originally posted this on Martin's board thinking he answered questions on there.

Hi Martin,

Hope this is the right place to post a question. I have been into credit card bagging for a while but have now paid off all but one (money is in premium bonds and just can't bring myself to cash them in, value is £12500.00). I have paid the others off because we hope to move house in the not to distant future and will be applying for a new (and larger) mortgage and I did not think it would look to good to have a large debt sitting out there.

I am keeping an eye on our credit file and so far all but one have been updated. The outstanding one still shows a debt of £13500 although this was actually settled 1st Feb 05, I have been in contact with credit expert and they have said that it will be updated when info is received from cc company.

The one thing that does show on the file is that although are balances are all at zero, we have the potential to borrow about £80k on credit cards, so my question is should I close these accounts down completely or will this not make any difference when applying for our mortgage. Also should I cash in the last one in and pay it off (the 0% period is till November), I would like to keep it if possible as we have already won £200 this year.

Would be really grateful for you help on this, would hate to lose out on a house by not being prepared.

Thanks

smartsaver

Have you read this:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1098274211,85485,

kazd

Smartsaver,

Thanks very much for that, I will read it in full tomorrow as its quite late now. That is pretty much what I thought. Tomorrow I will write to all the cc companies and cancel the accounts.

I will be keeping my two everyday cards which are Capital One Circle (1% cashback) and my Amex Plat (2% cashback). These are cleared every month.

Thanks again

kazd

One of the cards that I want to close has a credit balance on it, they took the direct debit after I had paid it. Its only a few pounds but am I within my rights to ask for a cheque refund when I close the account.

Thanks

Chadsman

kazd wrote:

One of the cards that I want to close has a credit balance on it, they took the direct debit after I had paid it. Its only a few pounds but am I within my rights to ask for a cheque refund when I close the account.

Thanks

The CC company will probably try to refund you by direct payment to the bank account they used for the DD but if you did want a cheque you couls certainly try asking.
But they certainly should refund the credit balance.