Should I cancel existing card to improve chances of getting £8k credit on new card?

matt8787

Hi

My partner has a balance of ~£8k that'll shortly be coming to the end of the 0% period. Therefore I'm looking to transfer the balance to a different card.

I already have 4 cards, with only 1 card having room on it (the Barclaycard 2). However the balance transfer offer on this card isn't very attractive (as an existing customer)

Barclaycard 1 = £10,500 (£15k limit)
Barclaycard 2 = £0 (£8.9k limit)
Halifax = £9,000 (£9k limit)
Virgin = £10,500 (£11k limit)


I'm wondering whether it'd be wise to close down Barclaycard (2), in the hope that it would improve chances of securing new 0% credit?

thanks

Eydon

So at the moment you are using 68% of your available credit.

If you close BCard 2 that will shoot up to a smidge over 85% of available credit, which might cause alarm bells to ring with new lenders.

Have you tried talking to BCard to see of they can offer you a better B/T rate?

matt8787

Hi - no I haven't - in fact, all I have on offer at the moment with BC 2 is a lifetime BT rate of 6.9%. I'm sure if I called them I could probably wrangle a 15 month 0% offer, but in an ideal world would like to get one of the newer 40 month 0% offers

eskbanker

matt8787 wrote: »

My partner has a balance of ~£8k that'll shortly be coming to the end of the 0% period. Therefore I'm looking to transfer the balance to a different card.

I already have 4 cards, with only 1 card having room on it (the Barclaycard 2).

What's the situation with your partner's available credit, etc, i.e. why would the default option be to shift the credit into your name if you're already heavily in debt (even if it's just stoozing)?

matt8787

She similarly has 4 cards with either little available space / or not very attractive BT offers (as an existing customer).

takman

I definitely wouldn't be closing the account due to the high credit utilisation you already have as stated in post #2.

From the information you have provided you seem to be in quite serious money debt with 8 cards between you and your partner that are almost all fully utilised. I think you should just apply for the card and hope for the best, you may be lucky if you have a high salary. Also i hope you have been making more than minimum payments on these cards otherwise i don't think you would have any chance of getting a new card with a good balance transfer offer!.

Candyapple

Barclaycard allow you to merge your credit limits.

It's also worth pointing out that you are no longer allowed a second Barclaycard so even if you closed down Barclaycard no.2, you wouldn't be able to apply for a new second card from Barclaycard in any event.

Anthorn

If you close B'card 2 it will be moved to a settled account and lenders will be able to deduce that you've closed an account to give room for another similar account. People do that all the time. I'm doing that right now. But it will take 1 - 2 months or more for that info to appear on your credit history. You could volunteer the info that you closed an account. Therefore I don't think that your current credit utilisation is all that serious. It could also be that consumer credit will change as a result of the BoE changes due to Brexit. Certainly the capital requirement of banks is being eroded. So credit utilisation may not apply anymore.

If in doubt apply.