Unused credit cards?

Puddylove

Hi
I've got three cards with the following balance, limits and APRs.

Barclaycard. £0. £13k. N/a

CB £800. £8k. 19%

Halifax. £9250. £15k. 0%

I'll be paying off the CB one in the next few weeks, and paying £250 per month on the Halifax.

Is there any harm in keeping the CB and the Barclaycard empty, should I close them or reduce the limits?

Thanks.

Thrugelmir

Have you any need for them?

If not close them. As there's no benefit in having them otherwise.

InsideInsurance

No straight answer is possible as each lender has its own preferences.

Generally you want to keep your utilisation rate below 60% so may be sensible to keep at least one of the others to help with the relatively high halifax balance.

You also need to compare total limit against income. Length you've held each card for, lenders like seeing others giving you big limits but want to ensure you can afford it even if you max out all of your cards.

Are you actually looking to get more credit in the near term anyway?

Puddylove

To answer your questions:
I've had the CB card for 20 years, Halifax about 15 years, and Barclaycard I opened about 18 months ago to get a 0% balance transfer (then moved it to Halifax for a new 0% one).
Never defaulted.
I earn between £45 and £50k.
I want to get a 95% LTV mortgage in the next year or two.

PDF

I'd keep the barclaycard as my wife and I both have barclaycards with £0 on them and they keep throwing 0% balance transfers and money transfers at us, good should you not manage to pay off the Halifax card in the 0% period.

CLAPTON

depends............

Many use CC to pay 'normal' everyday bills and benefit from cash back / benefits etc but pay in full each month so only a win win situation

Many find them invaluable when booking hotel rooms or car hire etc

Many like the section 75 protection that they afford.

However, if you truely don't use them there would seem no reason to keep them

in any event if you don't use them for more than a year or two many companies will close them

lisyloo

There are some very good uses for credit cards.
Car hire is one.
Another is section 75 protection.

But if you aren't going to use them then close them.

rootypooty

A couple of years ago I finally cleared all of my debts and I went through my credit report and closed all my unused cards and my credit score dropped! I know everyone on here says that the credit score is meaningless but some lenders do look at the % of the money that is available to you that your are using, therefore if you keep the cards open, you are using a lower %...

CLAPTON

rootypooty wrote: »

A couple of years ago I finally cleared all of my debts and I went through my credit report and closed all my unused cards and my credit score dropped! I know everyone on here says that the credit score is meaningless but some lenders do look at the % of the money that is available to you that your are using, therefore if you keep the cards open, you are using a lower %...

if you had cleared your debts then your credit utilisation would surely have been 0%?

Paully232000

If i were you and you want to close some I would close the CB one and keep the barclaycard as well as Halifax.

It is always good to have a CC, and, if anything like me, dont like to have a mix of 0% deal balances and interest bearing balances on one card. So for day to day spends, emergencies I would keep at least one other on top of your balance transfer card.
And as someone else has said, Barclays always seem to offer 0% deals if you go to the online accounts summary page. In my account which has about £1K on 0% out of a similar limit to you they always have at least 6 month BT deals available.

Thrugelmir

rootypooty wrote: »

A couple of years ago I finally cleared all of my debts and I went through my credit report and closed all my unused cards and my credit score dropped! I know everyone on here says that the credit score is meaningless but some lenders do look at the % of the money that is available to you that your are using, therefore if you keep the cards open, you are using a lower %...

Lenders will increasingly be looking at the current credit availability when processing any further requests.