Too much credit but still being accepted?

jon142

Hi everyone!

Looking for some advise. currently I have the following credit cards / overdrafts.

COOP - £2000 intrest free student overdraft - £1,800 used bought my first car
Barclays - £1500 intrest free student overdraft - never used
M&S CC - £6000 limit - pay for friends / family large purchases(points
BA Amex - £3000 limit ( approved yesterday avios points )
Santader - £2000 limit (123 for petrol, cashback)
Lloyds Amex - £2000 limit ( avios points )
First Direct - £1000 limit. ( 20 months interest free )

I feels although I have too much available credit but I use all the cards for various things. Listed above.

No idea what to do really. credit report is clean as a whistle only debt I have is the COOP overdraft for paying back my car it was £6000 and I paid £4000 of my own money and used £2000 interest free.

This is paid back at £140 a month!

Should I close some of the cards or keep them for my credit rating

My M&S card has shot up from £750 to £6000 in just over a year. companies seem to throwing credit around these days!

[Deleted User]

It looks a lot, but it only adds up to around £15k. Is this a lot in relation to your income?

I guess they will also be spread over the 3 CRAs, so each lender may only see a few of them.

You might want to rationalise them a bit, only for the sake of having fewer PINs to forget!

giblet10

I agree with previous comments, it isn't a huge amount of credit but depends on your income I suppose.

The only two things I think (based on my own £27k credit available and £40k income) is:

1) if you had too much credit against income it may be held against you if you ever saw a super duper new card that you really wanted - so keeping on lid on existing available credit is sensible

2) your existing favourite card might soon not be your favourite if the lender felt you had too much available on other less desirable cards so lopped a load off your credit limit making it unusable.

Hope this all makes sense - only my thoughts of course..

Tixy

Any particular reason you applied for the BA Amex card yesterday? Does if offer a better deal on points than your lloyds AMEX? or is it for an introductory deal?

It doesn't seem a massive amount of credit (although obviously it could be relative to your salary).

5 cards is quite a few, I tend to go for 3 cards myself, but I can see you are using them for different things (except for the 2 amex/avios cards).

giblet10

Tixy wrote: »

Any particular reason you applied for the BA Amex card yesterday? Does if offer a better deal on points than your lloyds AMEX? or is it for an introductory deal?

I'm sure the op has different reasons but for me I wanted some type of AMEX card and due to my wrecklessness in younger years I'm blacklisted for life with Amex (as is anyone who mucks up with them, apparently)

I was going to re-apply but someone back in September said they had remembered his offences from nearly a decade ago..so I gave up..

Naf

It's a lot of available credit; but unless they're all maxed out, it's not a lot of credit.
Looks to me like you have generally sound reasons for having the cards; and I'm assuming you pay them right off each month. As long as you're happy with the juggling/balancing act that's required, I don't see an issue.

jon142

Tixy wrote: »

Any particular reason you applied for the BA Amex card yesterday? Does if offer a better deal on points than your lloyds AMEX? or is it for an introductory deal?

It doesn't seem a massive amount of credit (although obviously it could be relative to your salary).

5 cards is quite a few, I tend to go for 3 cards myself, but I can see you are using them for different things (except for the 2 amex/avios cards).

I applied for the other Amex due to the offers Available at the moment such as £15 back when you spend £50 at shell etc.

Plus Lloyds are awful for the website and statement and things. I might close lloyds I think.

I would like to put half the money owed on the overdraft onto the 20 months interest free First direct account. But unsure how.

[Deleted User]

jon142 wrote: »

I would like to put half the money owed on the overdraft onto the 20 months interest free First direct account. But unsure how.

You can't. Unfortunately, amongst your many cards, you're missing one with a money transfer option.

Tixy

You could slow stooze it as you have 0% purchases (put day to day spending on there and use the money left to pay off the overdraft), but you'd miss out on points/cashback somewhere by doing that.

Naf

Tixy wrote: »

You could slow stooze it as you have 0% purchases (put day to day spending on there and use the money left to pay off the overdraft), but you'd miss out on points/cashback somewhere by doing that.

That's likely to be substantially outweighed by the actual cash savings from overdraft charges. Even authorised ones.

Bravehearted_2

Amex are like elephants - they never forget. If you keep to your word, they keep to theirs which is good.