Amazon Mastercard Query 3 December 2018 at 12:43PM in Stoozing: free cash from credit cards 11 replies 2.5K views

jackmarak

If I was to acquire an Amazon Mastercard to make use of the £20 voucher and 0% interest for 3 months. If I made a purchase and then paid it off well within those 3 months, would I take a hit on my credit rating for cancelling the credit card after paying the balance off?

Thanks in advance.

zx81

Your credit files will show the search, the opened account and then the closure.

It would be up to each lender to take a view on whether that puts you in a negative light. It very much depends on the rest of your file.

Willing2Learn

No you would not take a hit on your credit history.

Why not just keep the card, use it to buy things from your monthly budget (groceries and travel costs) and pay it off in full each month?

jackmarak

Yeah I've read that different companies look at it differently. I was thinking more along the lines of my score when I log into the soft check credit websites. It's very good at the moment, obviously it will have taken a hit after taking the card out. I currently have a car, a mortgage and sim only plan on my file I think. Would I benefit much from keeping the card and using is sensibly as Willing2Learn suggests or can I just cancel it in a couple of months? I took it out for the £20 voucher and the flexibility for something I wanted to buy but didn't want to pay full price and didn't want to pay for it this month. Seems drastic I know but I read the T & C's, there are no added fee's provided I use it carefully and what I planned to use it for.

Willing2Learn

You can cancel your card account any time you like. The only fees you have to watch for are 'residual' or 'trailing' interest.

And please, forget about your credit score. Lenders neither see nor use it. They score independently against their own criteria and policies using the data in your credit files, plus the data you submit in your credit application.

zx81

You can ignore the credit scores. They're just made up numbers that no one sees or cares about.

Experian in particular will drop your score on any change, good or bad, so if you want them to give you a high number, don't ever do anything. That won't do much for how lenders view you though.

I'd only get rid of the card if you have at least three or four other well managed ones, or are carrying too much credit.

jackmarak

Ah sweet, I'll ignore the numbers then. I've never missed a payment for my car, phone or mortgage so that should be enough to keep my file happy for now. I'll probably cancel the card next month when I have paid it off. Apparently the lenders (Newday) are awful to deal with anyway.

zx81

NewDay are fine to deal with. It's just that many of their products are sub prime and their customers tend to miss a lot of payments and incur a lot of fees and charges.

Understandly, these customers tend not to say great things about their card provider.

jackmarak

Sounds like I should be fine if I stick to my plan then. Thanks again guys.

oldagetraveller

I've recently done similar but it was an Amazon £30 gift voucher. Must have been good timing. I have done this previously and paid off the balance in full. Then phoned Newday and cancelled the account without any problems whatsoever.

I intend to do the same once I receive the first statement which will include the purchase I made. It automatically became default card in my Amazon account.
They gave me a £3000 limit which is much more than I wanted or anticipated. I want to cancel as soon as to remove that from my total available credi!

jackmarak

Interesting post, thanks for letting me know.
How long after taking the card did you cancel it?
I took mine out the other day and plan to cancel it a month later at the very latest.