Cancelling old cards

Linty

Hi guys

I'm a long time reader of these forums but this is my first time posting!

I've got a number of cards here and I've always thought it might be wise to get rid of some of them to keep my credit rating looking good, but I'm not sure if it's going to make things better or worse!

The cards I have are:

American Express charge card (no set limit)
American Express credit card (£3,800)
Nationwide credit card (£6,300)
MBNA credit card (£4,000)
Virgin Money credit card (£6,000)
Halifax credit card (£4,000)
Barclaycard credit card (£7,500)
RBS Platinum credit card (£1,750)

I've had most of them for quite a long time now and some of them are more recent (like the Virgin Money one). I use the AmEx charge card and the Nationwide card daily, but I don't really use the rest of them. Are they doing any harm being there or should I ditch any of them?

Some of them send quite good BT offers, like Barclaycard, MBNA and Virgin Money. I got one from RBS there for the first time since I got the card (in about 2010), and the offer was crap, so I'm not desperately bothered if that one has to go, especially given the limit when compared to the others.

Also, if I try to up the limit on any of these, will it leave a credit file search? Obviously keeping those to a minimum is vital.

Thanks for the help!

Thrugelmir

Housekeeping does no harm. If you have no need of the cards then cancel them.

Linty

They aren't doing any harm being open either though. I suppose it all boils down to 'how much is too much?'. Is it at such a number where lenders would be thinking twice about lending to me because I've got so many active accounts?