Cards paid, should I keep them?

colink24

Hi All

I recently paid off some of my cards and I was wondering if I should cancel them or keep them? I have heard that just cancelling is better for your credit rating but wanted to hear from those in the know. I intend to cut the cards up so I wont be able to use them regardless.

Paid (These cards generally high interest)

Barclaycard (£3500 limit)
Capital One (£2800 limit)

Outstanding

Nationwide 0% int (£2000)
Natwest (£1500)

So still a little bit to be fully clear. I earn £55,000 a year, though not sure if that is even relevant. Thanks a lot

Tixy

Your limits are not high for your salary even if you keep them.

Do the cleared accounts have any missed payments in their history showing on your file?

If you are carrying balances on your other 2 cards then I'd likely keep one of them in case you need to make a purchase with a card (e.g. for the section75 protection) or in an emergency.

[Deleted User]

You have a decent income, so the need to cancel them is not too great.

I'd be inclined to keep at least one open, if if only have four in total, and they all have low limits. Probably the Bcard.

StuC75

you may get fresh offers through for BT's so may help to have a facility for passing the other balances through...

colink24

Tixy wrote: »

Your limits are not high for your salary even if you keep them.

Do the cleared accounts have any missed payments in their history showing on your file?

If you are carrying balances on your other 2 cards then I'd likely keep one of them in case you need to make a purchase with a card (e.g. for the section75 protection) or in an emergency.

No, no missed payments (that I can remember anyway). If so it would have been a good few years ago.

Thanks!

colink24

StuC75 wrote: »

you may get fresh offers through for BT's so may help to have a facility for passing the other balances through...

Fair point! I only really need to BT the Natwest card, and I intend to clear that this month anyway. But thanks for the comment, hadn't thought of that

CLAPTON

no problem with 4 with low limits like those

you may want to consider looking for cards with benefits ; points, cashback etc

Mat_Lock

I have 2 balance cards and 1 purchase card.

Barclaycard = £0 on it
MBNA = £2000 on it (0% until Jan 2014)
Tesco = £1000 (0% purchases until June 2014)

When the MBNA 0% runs out I will move what's left, hopefully about £1600 by then on to the Barclaycard as they have 0% offers on until October 2014 currently. I will only pay the 2.9% BT fee for the whole of my debt. So it pays to keep 1 or 2 alive.

Hope that helps

Twiggy_34

I don't know how each of your cards compare but this time last year I had 3 credit cards, my main card from my main bank which I use for purchases and which is paid of in full every month and I plan to always keep, and 2 cards which were 0% balance transfer deals to manage some large expenses I'd had in the previous year.

Once all cards had been cleared I cancelled the Halifax card, but kept the Barclaycard one. The reason for keeping the Barclaycard one was that the online account enabled me to easily reduce the limit down to just £1k (handy to have in an emergency but not so much as to be dangerously tempting!). Not only this but Barclaycard regularly re-introduce 0% balance transfer deals which none of my other cards have done, at least not with so much frequency. I figured it was handy to keep this available as an alternative option to manage large expenses without dipping into savings, and have actually already made use of it following a large dental bill a few months ago (private treatment).

Obviously you have to weigh things up as there's usually a fee associated with the transfer, but it doesn't sound like you're in dire need of disposing of all cards for the sake of your credit rating

jamesml

Have you got concerns you'll be tempted to rack up spending on them?

jimjames

From looking at my credit report it appears you get benefit from having cards that have no balances and a high available credit that you haven't used so it may be beneficial to keep them for day to day spending and clear monthly. Obviously if you are likely to be tempted to spend money you don't have then this isn't such a good idea