Help with various credit cards

Jhunter1983

Hope this makes sense....

Hello,

I hope you can help. I am confused at what to do.

I currently have 5 credit cards, a Santander card that we use for our monthly shopping and clear each month when paid, a Virgin Credit Card with a balance of £0, a MBNA card with £6710 (Kitchen), a Tesco CC with £1350 and a Barclaycard with £2200. These are all 0% cards so I don’t get charged and I pay at least the minimum balance. I have budgeted by April 2018 they will all be clear with the exception of the MBNA.

Would you suggest that I cancel the cards once the balances are cleared or would you keep them? How would this affect my credit rating/history?

I have heard people saying having available credit it good for your credit rating but surely it may affect me getting credit in the future as I could use all the available credit after applying for further credit/balance transfer card?

Help…

[Deleted User]

It very much depends on the limits and your income.

5 cards isn't many, but if the limits are three times your income, you may want to close one or two.

If you're still carrying a balance, you also want to maintain psome unused credit.

Jhunter1983

Thanks for your prompt response, The total credit for all 5 cards add up to £19150, £500 Santander, £5000 Virgin, £7300 MBNa, £2050 tesco and £3800 on barclaycard.

Which would you suggest getting rid of? Virgin and then either tesco or Barclaycard which ever clears first?

SuperHan

I assume Santander is some kind of cash back card, or I'd be getting rid of that.


I'd keep Virgin and MBNA and probably get rid of Tesco and Barclaycard based on limits, but I would also keep the card I've had the longest.

Jhunter1983

Santander is a cash back card although I don't get much from it, and I've had virgin the longest. So it looks like I'll keep those two and the MBNA card.

Thank you