Pay off (or close?) other cards before applying for Halifax Clarity?

YorkshireBoy

How much are you spending on card 3 per month? If anywhere close to £8-900 then they could be reporting another maxed out card, so that's 3 out of 5 that are maxed out...not good!

And 5 cards may be considered too many by some card providers (even if your salary will stand the total available credit), and Halifax may be one of them?

Perhaps a better approach might be to open a Halifax current account in branch and see if they'll bundle a Clarity card (with just the one current account search). They used to do, but not sure if they still do?

rileydog

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

How much are you spending on card 3 per month? If anywhere close to £8-900 then they could be reporting another maxed out card, so that's 3 out of 5 that are maxed out...not good!

And 5 cards may be considered too many by some card providers (even if your salary will stand the total available credit), and Halifax may be one of them?

Perhaps a better approach might be to open a Halifax current account in branch and see if they'll bundle a Clarity card (with just the one current account search). They used to do, but not sure if they still do?

Good point, card 3 statement is due any day and the balance is £950, which I always pay off in full but that's obviously 50+% of that credit limit used.

Sounds like the best bet might be to close 4 & 5 and pay off 1 & 2 meaning I have three cards with credit limits equalling 32% of my income and zero balances on them all.

I don't really want to open a current account as have no need for one so would ideally like to go down the credit card only route (I have no other Halifax products).

YorkshireBoy

rileydog wrote: »

Good point, card 3 statement is due any day and the balance is £950, which I always pay off in full but that's obviously 50+% of that credit limit used.

But by the time you pay it (3 weeks later) the balance will be £1,600 or so?...that's if they report the highest monthly balance? Or maybe they only report the statement balance? The long and short of it is you could be anywhere between 50-90% utilisation...and 2 of your other cards are also maxed out.


Back to basics though...how much interest will you lose by paying them off early? And how much will you save in fees by using Clarity rather than some other card? If there's nothing/very little in it, what's the point?...especially when you could repay them and still get declined by Halifax!

rileydog

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

But by the time you pay it (3 weeks later) the balance will be £1,600 or so?...that's if they report the highest monthly balance? Or maybe they only report the statement balance? The long and short of it is you could be anywhere between 50-90% utilisation...and 2 of your other cards are also maxed out.


Back to basics though...how much interest will you lose by paying them off early? And how much will you save in fees by using Clarity rather than some other card? If there's nothing/very little in it, what's the point?...especially when you could repay them and still get declined by Halifax!

I always pay the next day after the statement so the balance is never more than a months spend.

The savings I have are actually in the form of premium bonds - so I could lose nothing or I could lose a million! I'm actually doing quite well with the bonds and normally get a £25 prize most months. It's more the chance of winning big that appeals!

I will probably be spening 3k+ on the Clairty abroad (if I get it) so it would be nice to have the peace of mind that the exchange rate is fair and there's no loading fees etc

I've pretty much decided to cancel cards 4 & 5 as they're not used nowadays, plus if I was to use a card and not be able to pay back straight away I wouldn't choose either of those as the rate isn't great.

Paying card 2 off early doesn't bother me as only 3 months left on the 0% but it would be annoyiong to pay card 1 off and be declined for the Clarity as that one has over a year to go at 0% so I'd miss out on a years worth of premium bond prizes (nil or a million!).

rileydog

Just an update to this if anyone is looking for similar info...

I closed card 4, paid off the 0% cards in full (1 & 2) - waited for my credit report to update and was accepted online for the Clarity with a worthwhile limit :beer: