Close accounts or not?

sammie28

Ok, so as some of you know i applied for the Flybe Card, thinking i would have a half decent chance of getting it now that my ccj has come off my Equifax file. Rejection letter came this morning stating - We regret to advise that we are unable to offer you an account at this time. Unfortunately, on this occasion your application fell below our minimum acceptance score.

Equifax looks ok to me, no ccj, no defaults etc although the credit agreements section is 'Yellow'.

So, i have been thinking about this all day. Is it possible that i have too much available credit? And too many accounts! 10 in total.
According to Exerian, i am using 29% of available credit.

The main purpose of wanting the Flybe card was to do a BT from my 2nd Cap 1 card and Vanquis card and then close those accounts.

So i guess my question for you lovely people is - Do i close my first Capital one card with the lowest limit which i have had for 7 years. £200 limit, never had an increase!
I have paid it off today in preparation for this! And should i ask them to reduce my limits on the catalogue accounts? I have read very conflicting advice on here and just don't know what to do for the best. The aim is to get a 0% BT card and get rid of 2nd Cap 1 and Vanquis.

Any advice appreciated

sammie28

Anyone able to offer any advice on whether it is a good idea to close accounts and reduce limits to lower available credit?

gezza2k

My default fell off last week and was unable to get a creation card or the Halifax clarity, think it is because I have a AP tag on a settled account from 2009.
Anyway I applied for the Amazon MasterCard and was accepted with a £1500 limit, Give it a try

sammie28

Thanks gezza2k, I will look into it

BugsyBrowne

sammie28 wrote: »

Anyone able to offer any advice on whether it is a good idea to close accounts and reduce limits to lower available credit?

If one of these don't except you I will personally send you a fiver.

http://apply.creation.co.uk/allsaints/web_channel/cards/microsite/carddetails.aspx


http://apply.creation.co.uk/owls/web_channel/cards/microsite/carddetails.aspx


https://apply.creation.co.uk/wolves/web_channel/cards/microsite/carddetails.aspx?

sammie28

Lol Bugsy

Which do you think would be best? I take it the Flybe is one of the harder ones to get!

I am going to ring them tomorrow to find out the exact reason for rejection and take it from there.

Do you think my available credit is an issue? (approx £10,000 between my 3 catalogues)

BugsyBrowne

sammie28 wrote: »

Lol Bugsy

Which do you think would be best? I take it the Flybe is one of the harder ones to get!

I am going to ring them tomorrow to find out the exact reason for rejection and take it from there.

Do you think my available credit is an issue? (approx £10,000 between my 3 catalogues)

Flybe is only classed as hard to get accepted for if another poster has been turned down by them, but do know many on here who's been rejected for say the Flybe and the same day been accepted for another Sygma card.

But I would personally get shot of those paperbacks as 10k available credit will most likely be seen as a negative.

sammie28

Thanks Bugsy. I'm guessing it would be a good idea to sort the catalogues out before applying again for a CC! Cap 1 with the £200 limit will be getting closed tomorrow. I know it's not much in the way of available credit but it will be 1 less active account

sfax

For comparison, I had 5 credit cards and have just been accepted for a sixth with an instant online decision - now 4 BT cards, 1 purchase card, 1 store card (only £750). At the time of acceptance, my debt to limit ratio was 40% but I have had rejections in the past at around 60% (there are obviously other factors though). I close accounts where I've used up the balance transfer offers to keep the total amount of credit available fairly constant and a ratio of around 40% seems to work well for me. I would say 10 active CC accounts is excessive, particularly if some are as low as £200 so I would look to close a few of them if you can keep the debt/limit ratio around 40% at the same time

sammie28

Hi sfax, the 10 accounts are not all Credit cards. I have 3 credit cards, 2 are cap 1 and a vanquis. The other active accounts are 3 catalogues, 2 bank accounts, mobile contract car hp (with creation) and a loan with my bank. My debt to limit ratio seems to be always around 30%.

sfax

sammie28 wrote: »

Hi sfax, the 10 accounts are not all Credit cards. I have 3 credit cards, 2 are cap 1 and a vanquis. The other active accounts are 3 catalogues, 2 bank accounts, mobile contract car hp (with creation) and a loan with my bank. My debt to limit ratio seems to be always around 30%.

Ah, that's not so excessive!

That may be a problem looking purely at the CC accounts as closing one £200 account won't make any difference IMO. Not sure on the effect of catalogue accounts but may be worth closing one or two and re-applying after your credit report shows them as closed