Unsure what to do card juggling

Felmersandy

Hope so one can advise me or indeed if I have posted in the right area!!

I have a barclaycard with a balance of around £15k (yes I've been an idiot and just paid minimum payments for a while) and decided to address this, I found a Virgin money card that I applied for and was approved for a credit limit of £7.6k, 0% on balance transfers 24 months 1% fee, at the time of application I requested a £6k balance transfer from my barclaycard ideally I would like to clear the barclaycard completely by transferring the entire balance as its around 18%
I have looked at clearscore and I have a good credit rating 460/700 apparently and I only have one soft search in the past 6 months
Do I reduce my credit limit on my other card (currently about £28k) and apply back to virgin for a higher credit limit and transfer the rest? or will this mess up my credit rating? I don't want lots of applications and searches on my file as I like to keep a little leeway in case of emergencies
I'm mortgage free homeowner with a higher than average income so can make substantial payments monthly and clear within 2-3 years

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

bigadaj

Ignore the credit score your given it often bares little resemblance to your actual credit situation as looked upon by people who may actually lend you money.

It would have been best to transfer the maximum amount you could to virgin, they won't review your limit now so don't ask for an increase immediately.

A rule of thumb I've seen quoted is to keep debt to half your credit limit and your credit limits to half your salary. So after the balance transfer it might be worth reducing your barclaycard limit by maybe £10k and apply for another card to transfer the remainder, mbna are often quoted as offering good limits.

Barclaycard won't transfer you to a 0% deal but I've seen people quoting a life of balance deal with them for around 5-6%, it may be worth ringing them up and seeing if they could do anything similar. It's not 0% but it's a third of your current rate.

ChrisJ1988

Lloyds recently have me a credit card with a limit of 12k (although they asked me how much I want so could of got more) which is 0% balance transfer. As already said dont worry too much about your credit score or having "too many" applications on your file.

Hope that helps.

Dobbibill

Transfer as much as possible to Virgin and make at least the minimum.

Maybe try one more card, as suggested, like MBNA to see if you can get anything else on a 0% deal.

The other cards you speak of decreasing the limit from 28k.....is that just your BC or do you have another card?

Throw as much spare money as you can at any debt incurring interest while paying the minimum on the other card/s.

It will come down in time.

Again, as already said, your credit score is only the CRAs thoughts on you, which is pretty irrelevant given they don't do any form of lending

Felmersandy

Thanks for your response

I have a Santander card also, had it years nothing on it credit limit of around 12k

So I assume having a limit so high acts as credit available on my file even though I don't use it

Andy

Dobbibill

Felmersandy wrote: »

I have a Santander card also, had it years nothing on it credit limit of around 12k

Have you asked Santander if they have any offers for 0% BTs?

They may have an offer available, maybe shorter than 'new customer promotions' but asking doesn't hurt.

Equally, they could say 'no' but unless you ask, you'll never know.

So I assume having a limit so high acts as credit available on my file even though I don't use it

You need to take all the emotion out of applying for credit, take a step back and think how it looks to a potential lender on paper.

They do not know you personally, and have to consider..... could you max out any limit they give you along with the existing lines of credit you have and if this happened would they struggle to recover the lending?

Yes existing available credit would be considered.