Credit card limits

bertiewhite

Can anybody confirm my assumption on credit card limits over multiple cards.

I have 4 cards - Barclaycard, Virginmoney, Tesco & Halifax. I am assuming that when a limit is decided, the issuer takes other cards into consideration? ie. the Halifax is my most recent card with only £1500 limit, presumably because the Barclaycard & Virginmoney both had £13000 limits and the Tesco £5000. This means a total limit of £32500 over 4 cards.

If the limit on one of the larger cards is then reduced at my request (eg £6000), can I in theory apply for another with a limit of up, say £5000? Or doesn't it work that way?

The cards are used for 0% transfer juggling.

MallyGirl

it is not as hard and fast as 'drop 1 limit by 5k and instantly be able to get £5k somewhere else' but that is the general idea. Each provider decides on what to offer you based on a set of criteria - one aspect will be the credit already available to you but there are several others that feed into the final decision. Plus some providers just seem to be more generous than others.
It may take a ccouple of months for a reduction in credit limit to show with the CRAs - and there will also be the negative aspect when dropping a limit that, without borrowing any more, your credit utilisation percentage will rise and that is also one of the criteria that feeds into the provider's credit limit decision.

bertiewhite

Thanks for your reply Mallygirl. I did actually reduce the Barclaycard limit several months ago because I was uncomfortable having such a large limit but it sounds like it wasn't such a good idea then

My Experian credit score did take a dip shortly afterwards but is now back to its original score so that would explain that maybe.

The reason for me asking is that I regularly get 0% offers across all 4 cards but they are only for up to 6-9 months so I wondered if it'd be worth applying for a 5th card - one of the latest long period 40 monthers?

[Deleted User]

bertiewhite wrote: »

My Experian credit score did take a dip shortly afterwards but is now back to its original score so that would explain that maybe.

I think the recent cold weather is a more likely explanation of a change in your score.