Close the Credit Card?

Neato

Hi,

Five months ago I got a CapitalOne card in order to balance transfer part of my overdraft debt onto (one of my accounts with and overdrafts stopped being interest free). I've now paid this off, and the 0% ends in January (I think), so I'm not sure it's worth shifting any more.

Should I now close this card? I understand having open unused cards can negatively effect your credit rating but I wasn't sure if having a card just for 5 months might also look bad? I don't mind keeping the card just for onlline purchases to be repaid in full each month if that would be more beneficial, but I don't want to keep hold of it if I don't need to.

Thanks in advance :money:

CLAPTON

depends upon your circumstances

how many cards do you have?

how do you use them?

Indout96

I'll jump in to this one as well, I have 6 cards I just use 1 and the other 5 are empty (ex tarting cards) but I still have them. I always understood it was better to keep them open so I will watch this with interest.

swgl

The answer is always - it depends. Keeping a lot of credit available to you (even if not used) can restrict the amount of credit that you can apply for - let's say you need a loan in the near future. So if unused better close them, unless they have certain advantages.

In my case I have a Barclaycard Simplicity 6.9% APR which is the lowest APR I ever had on a card (excluding promotional rates), Halifax Clarity (exclusively used for travel), and MBNA platinum which currently has a 0% promotional transfers rate until 2015. All in all about £10k available to me, which is more than I need.

I had a Tesco CC with 0% APR purchases that expired recently and I didn't see any reason for keeping it - as I don't care about grocery points - so I closed it.

Neato

I have 2 cards. Both max limit of £500.

One is an old student credit card which I often use for buying things online and always pay off. It's 15.9%. I've also used this once or twice in emergency then took an extra month to pay it off.

The second is this one I've done the balance transfer with.
I suppose another option would be to close the student one as I've had that a good few years now, if that would look better. Then keep the CapitalOne one for online spends. Interest on purchases on this one is 30.34%

EDIT: Just to add I've never used the CapitalOne for purchases, I balanced transferred and I'm now just paying it back by DD each month.

Thanks

alexderle

It's up to you

CLAPTON

Neato wrote: »

I have 2 cards. Both max limit of £500.

One is an old student credit card which I often use for buying things online and always pay off. It's 15.9%. I've also used this once or twice in emergency then took an extra month to pay it off.

The second is this one I've done the balance transfer with.
I suppose another option would be to close the student one as I've had that a good few years now, if that would look better. Then keep the CapitalOne one for online spends. Interest on purchases on this one is 30.34%

EDIT: Just to add I've never used the CapitalOne for purchases, I balanced transferred and I'm now just paying it back by DD each month.

Thanks

500 is a very very low limit

keep both

once the BT is paid off use the card regularly and pay in full each month