Lower credit limit or close card -advice

MikeHartley

Thanks in part to the advice on this forum, I'm reducing - gradually - a hefty set of credit card bills and am at the stage of (finally!) paying off the first of (3) balances next month.

This will leave me with two cards.

Some advice needed: in order to improve my credit rating do I:

Pay off the card and leave it open and unchanged.
Pay off the card and request to lower my credit limit
Pay off the card and close it

Which of the three is most likely to give me a boost to my rating?

System

First or last.
Better to have fewer cards with higher limits.

MikeHartley wrote: »

Pay off the card and leave it open and unchanged.
[STRIKE]Pay off the card and request to lower my credit limit [/STRIKE]
Pay off the card and close it

Which of the three is most likely to give me a boost to my rating?

StuC75

The problem with lowering the limit is that it doesn't show if it is the customer being 'sensible' or the lender reacting to a change in account conduct.. It would also increase your credit utilisation % ..

Best to leave as is, if the account is still open for purchases then restrict its usage to the sensible MSE methods(pay in full etc) - as depending on provider they may offer further BT offers, which could help if you needed to move the other balances around to save on Interest rates (eg move from interest charging to 1 year deal)...