Bad Credit Card Q

stinabean

Hi all

Blaming baby brain here, seem to be over-thinking.

My OH wants a credit card to build up his rating. It's not awful, but not great.

Anyway, if he got one to buy petrol on for example and pay it off in full every month does this really help over a period of time? If so, should he wait a few days for the spend to show and then pay it off asap, or should he set up a DD to cover the full balance?

Thanks all

eDicky

Don't pay it off until it has appeared on a statement, otherwise it will not be apparent to the CRAs that the card is being used. Setting up a DD and paying that way is fine.

stinabean

thank you!

[Deleted User]

You work to improve your credit history - not your made up rating/score - you can safely ignore those.

Use the card for normal monthly purchases and pay off in full each month after receiving the statement

And then repeat

T-G-C

If he doesn't need the card for actual credit, in other words, to make purchases on the account he can already afford to pay back, the provider doesn't necessarily matter.

For a credit builder, I recommend either Vanquis Bank, Capital One or Aqua. The likelihood of acceptance is much higher with Vanquis Bank than the other two, due to having the highest rate of interest on some of its cards, although it shouldn't matter to you.


There's not much point in mainstream, as the only difference between them and sub-prime is the interest rate, rewards / points and 0% promotions. For the purpose you mentioned, a high APR is irrelevant, as you won't be charged interest for clearing in full each month. This excludes cash withdrawals / transactions.