does having other credit cards affect applications?

Anthorn

HarlowC wrote: »

People who don't use much of their available credit are considered much less risky borrowers than those who are near their credit limits

Debt to limit ratio should should never be above 30% and ideally should be always under 10%

That's the theory and I stick to that too; c.f. my signature; but I have never seen any evidence which supports that. Perhaps the only way using our full credit limit affects us is that it increases our overall outstanding balance (total amount owed). But it's reasonable to believe that in considering an application lenders calculate the total amount of available credit and not the total outstanding balance.

jonesMUFCforever

Etccarmageddon wrote: »

thank you, I will think about getting rid of that card with the massive credit limit as it might look like I already have too much available credit.

Don't have to get rid completely - just ask them to reduce your limit.

Etccarmageddon

Dobbibill wrote: »

Does your card with a £10k limit not have a BT offer?
May be worth giving them a call to ask and rotating CC usage to suit your needs, rather than applying for more.

Some cards do BT offers more frequently than others. I know BC are always offering BT deals to existing customers when the balance drops.

it does actually but the transfer fee and length is poor.

Etccarmageddon

Ben8282 wrote: »

Do not under any circumstances get rid of the £10k card or reduce the credit limit.
If you spend around 2k pm on this card and (presumably) pay by direct debit your actual balance will probably get up to about 3.5k before the DD is taken. Remember that it is not the statement balance which is taken into consideration by lenders but the 'balance' reported on the day that lenders report. You may well find that the 'balance' being reported each month is almost twice your monthly spend. A 3.5k balance on a 10k limit card is 35% utilisation. In order to keep the utilisation % down, you need a large unused amount available within your credit limit.
In addition, lenders will take existing high credit limit into consideration when deciding on the credit limit to be given. If you have high limit cards (and to be honest 10k is not really a high limit), you will be seen as a 'high limit' kind of person. If all your limits are low, then you will be seen as a 'low limit' kind of person.
Personally I am not convinced about the idea that the total of a persons credit limits should not exceed half of their salary. I would wait until you see some evidence that this is causing you problems before you take any action based on this assumption.
You say that you will need to do this balance transfer in about 3 months time.
In your position I would immediately do everything possible to reduce the balances reported. That means getting the balances as low as possible on the day of the month that the lenders report the balance. I agree with HarlowC above about the debt to limit ratio. You said that you don't understand this but it is easy to explain. If the total of your credit limits is 20k and your total balances 10k, your debt to limit ratio would be 50%. To work out your ratio, add up your total balances and divide them by the total of your credit limits.
Apart from that, there is not much that you can do apart from using an eligibility checker and applying for the best card that you have a good chance of being accepted for.
And good luck ...

thanks for your advice and time.

I will pay off as much as possible to reduce my outstanding balances well in advance of the deadline for applying for my next card.