Settling old inactive credit card accounts

GearsofWarondebt

Hello there

General advice is to close zero balance credit card accounts that you are not using and don't intend to use. However, credit rating takes into account the % of available credit used. If I close a few £0 balance accounts that have high credit limits, my % used of available credit will increase sharply.

Any advice on best way to handle this?

My instinct says leave old accounts alone to keep % low until I get balances right down. What do you guys think?

Cheers

djephoto

Good question. I'd like to know this too.

Thrugelmir

GearsofWarondebt wrote: »

My instinct says leave old accounts alone to keep % low until I get balances right down. What do you guys think?

Look at it from a lenders point of view. Why does individual require this credit availability?

The amount of credit in relation to gross income and number of lines of credit available. Are increasingly taken into account when processing applications.

Maestro.

Everyone here will give you slightly different answers. Few people know the real answer because alas... banks will not tell us at all what makes their systems tick. We're just expected to telepathically know what they'd prefer us to do and each credit search is just a gamble.

Thrugelmir

Maestro. wrote: »

Everyone here will give you slightly different answers. Few people know the real answer because alas... banks will not tell us at all what makes their systems tick. We're just expected to telepathically know what they'd prefer us to do and each credit search is just a gamble.

Not rocket science. Responsible lending is the new game in play.