changing and consolodating bank accounts

halia

hi all,
this is me trying to keep track of what I need to do to sort out the almighty mess our household finances are in.
I'd really appreicate any tips anyone can give and especially if you can point out any glaring mistakes I am making.

Current situation:
We have 3 current accounts, one each and a joint one with First direct.
It was becoming more and more unweildy to have the three as DH hates having anything complex with finances - he's a one card one account type of man.

I was just going to close the two seperate old accounts and keep with FD but we had a run of terrible customer service/mistakes and I wanted to see if I coudl get a better deal.

I've opened an A&L premier account to get the 6.5% interest. I completed all their forms and they promise that they will do all the transfers and close down the old accounts. I'm assuming that this will be sorted out for the June salary run and July Direct debits
QUESTION1: now all the DD's have gone out of the other accounts should I start transfering over the balances to the new account myself and cut up old debit cards? or should I wait until A&L do it for me?
QUESTION2: I have put £100 into the A&L account to give me a cushion just in case of salary delay - but if they do muck up transfers and I end up with an overdraft on any account do I have any means of comeback?

We also have a mini cash ISA with HSBC with £350 in it (there was more but it was withdrawn to pay for wedding anniversary). At present we put £100 a month into it.
QUESTION3: can I get a better deal elsewhere and is it worth the hassle to switch?

We then have 3 savings accounts:
one with A&L (regular saver pays 12%) pay in £20 a month. I intend to use this for savings for holidays etcone with LLoydsTSB that I was going to use as a PMS account. I need to keep PMS seperate somehow otherwise they will get spent!

and finally......
4 credit cards
Tesco - balance £400
HSBC - balance £0
Mint - for some odd reason credit balance of £43.12
LloydsTSB - credit balance of £4.63 (from overpaying last time!)

We need to have at least one card for big spends (house stuff) and online purchases (to get protection). Whats our best bet for a card - we spend about £300 a month on credit cards but need a limit of £5,000. We dont' aways pay off blance in full - it depends on big purchases, but we rarely have more than £500 on credit cards.

I am DESPERATE to make some sense out of all of this!