Should I go for a new Purchases Card Now?

Ben1982

Hi

I've been semi-stoozing for about 5 months now. I say Semi, as I used first of all used a Balance Transfer to pay off my A&L Loan. And now I'm using a combination of this year's ISA, a Sainsbury's savings account and overpaying my mortgage (e.g. Paid £800 in in one go rather than £100 per month - so the £100 per month extra can go into the pot) to help reap the benefits. Hopefully once my savings reach the same amount as my credit card balances - which they should by April, I will hopefully be a true stoozer.

Anyway, here's the breakdown of what I have and what I applied for:

HSBC (Applied for in April) - BT until April 2008, current balance is now ~£3260.00 - Limit £4K
Post Office Card (April too) - Applied for and got accepted, but they wanted my bank statements, passport etc (being with A&L at the time, and going abroad in May, and going through a remortgage, it was difficult to get this info off to them, so I never pursued it further - still got £20.50 quidco cashback out of it so not all bad).
Egg Money (April Again) - For obvious reasons I think. Currently a mere positive balance of ~£10 on it. - Limit £3250
Sainsbury's (Applied for late May, early June) - 0% on Purchases for 10 month - currently ~£2980. Limit is £3600
Natwest (Applied for Late July/Early August) - was going to be the Balance Transfer for 12 Months, to free up some of the spend on sainsbury's, but they declined, saying my credit rating wasn't up to what they wanted.
BarclayCard (had since I could have a credit card - 7/8 years I think) - They sent an offer out for 0% on BT until August next year with a 3% fee. So I transferred £4200 odd to Egg Money, this would allow me to pay off part/all of the Sainsbury's one and some of the HSBC one if neccessary. Balance currently is ~£4400. Limit is £5000 (after asking for an increase "because I wanted to take advantage of the BT offer".

The declination one half concerns me, I've heard Natwest/RBS are a bit strict on their lending. When I checked my Experian File in April it was all good (using Martin's advice for getting it for free).
I've tried getting the Equifax file (again the freebie way) since then, but their web order process says an error has occurred after putting in the payment details.

So with my Sainsburys one reaching the limit, I've started to phase out using it. (It was used to make some large needed purchases for my flat, so any new cards won't be as bad). And obviously with Christmas coming, I would still like to be able to put maximum funding away into savings from my spending.
I'm guessing I can't go for most of the top notch new purchases cards (HBOS - already got the SB one, HSBC - already got a BT one, and Capital One's until November one, needs my credit balances to be less than £10,000, they're currently £600 over )

Anyway, so I was thinking of going for the Capital One, one which goes for purchases until August Next year needing a "good" credit rating... ties in nicely with the Barclaycard one.

I know it's a gamble of saying "Will I be accepted for it?", but would all the searches against my credit file (bar the NatWest One) now be gone? Would it be worth pursuing trying to get the Equifax file (or try getting the experian one for free again) beforehand?

If it helps my Annual Salary is fairly close to the HRT Band, and I have no other loans apart from my mortgage (£44k - shared ownership (inherited from sister before anyone asks why I earn what I do, and have a shared ownership flat))

Cheers

Ben