Credit card portfolio

hugheskevi

0% cards just instil bad money practice in my mind. They encourage people to buy things they can't afford.

Definitely true for those without financial discipline, but used correctly they can be very rewarding

For example, my current outstanding mortgage is £45,650 at 1.69% interest. The amount I have outstanding on 0% credit cards across my wife and I is £70,950. Even at the low mortgage rate of interest of 1.69%, that is still a saving of £1,200 p/a on interest compared to having £0 on credit cards and a mortgage of £116,600.

The absolute worst case return figure is 1.5% on money held in an instant access account, or £1,064 over a year. In practice, a lot of the funds went into ISAs and pensions, with much higher returns.

[Deleted User]

K80 Black - are you not eligible for Aqua Reward or Advance for foreign cash? Although I think NewDay aren't keen on giving multiple cards to lower scoring customers, it's an option if you've had your Amazon account for 12 months+.

Monzo might be a shout if you need more foreign cash (£200pm free).

My plans are very different to most on here, as I have bankruptcy on file until summer next year.

I've pretty much got all I'm going to get for the next year (adverse/new job/high-ish limits given circumstances).

I did have a Barclaycard Foundation app rejected in March (they normally don't take bankruptcy on file, but it said 90% so I gave it a shot). They still write to me every few weeks telling me the appeal is still being processed and they hope to update me soon! :eek: :rotfl:

• Cap1 - £3,750 limit. 34.9% - has been bounced from offer to offer so my (current) profile is long-standing
  
• Vanquis Chrome 'Gold' - Closest to prime, 24.7%, £3,500 limit.
  Nil balance but large limit & offer decent BT promos at times. Fee-free Money transfers for 'gold' customers - might be useful for bouncing stoozed funds in future too so keeping even when adverse drops.
  
• Aqua Reward - £1,700. Appalling customer service and they've messed up my credit file. Recently cut limit & hiked APR to 50% - solely [ab]using for the cashback!
  
• Asda Start (Creation) - £1k, 1% off Asda petrol.
  
• Tesco Bank - Foundation Card. £900 limit upped twice from original £250 less than a year ago, keeping to improve score with Tesco Bank (want a current account for the 3%!)
  
• PayPal - £500. Useful for 4 months 0% on £99+ / 12 months 0% on eBay (sometimes). Hoping they'll up the limit again soon.
  
• Next Directory - £1,500 even though I never use it. Left it for lower utilisation %

Need to close at least one as all that available credit isn't great for a sub-prime customer.

Decent enough mix at the moment, approx 25% utilisation. I'll axe Next once util is below 10% (monthly spends only).

As soon as bankruptcy drops, I'll axe Aqua and get an Amex (or Tandem). If I get a Amex, Asda can be axed too and hopefully get some balance transfers to stooze/overpay mortgage

MrNoble

I entered the murky world of credit cards about two years, not having a credit history hindered me somewhat (was always of the closed thought process of can't afford it save until you can)

Currently I have 7 cards, a very bnpl account, and 4 months ago was accepted for my first 0% 32 month balance transfer deal which not only allowed me to return most cards back to a 0 balance but wiped out the transfer fee and give me £20 cashback to boot.

My first card issued was with Vanquis and still have it open gets a just eat order once a month to keep it active as if it's not paid in full it is an eye watering 54.9% APR.

Apart from the hsbc balance transfer card everything is paid in full monthly or over the promotion period.

My next move is to move over to lower rate cards or contact current card company's and see if they will reassess my personal rates.

MisterBaxter

At the moment I have:-

MBNA - £9,400
Virgin Money - £11,000
Barclaycard £5,400
Nationwide - £5,000
Argos Storecard - £2,000

Across all of them I currently have the whopping balance of £54.98 (which will have to be paid in full because it's across multiple cards so will be below the minimum payment level). I think my limits have remained low because I rarely use the cards. I have had others in the past that I have closed or that have been cancelled due to lack of use.

My wife has a Santander Card that gets used for most of our shopping (she pays, I pack the bags), she also tends to book our holidays. That one is paid in full each month but the credit limit is around £15,000 because it does get used and is also good for foreign use. I may try to get this one switched out for an Amex Cashback card for use at home.

When rewards and offers were good I used to open cards just to get the reward/offer but they aren't what they used to be in my opinion.

If you are going to have cards I think it is a good idea to have at least 1xVisa & 1xMastercard and if you travel outside the UK having a card that does fee free conversion is useful.

MovingForwards

Two cards:

Sub-prime 24.?% do 0% offers occasionally
My bank 9.?%

More than enough credit over the two for me.

guesswho2000

19 currently, consisting of 12x UK and 7x Australian.

I use them for various travel rewards, either airline (BA, Qantas, Virgin Australia), hotel (Hilton & IHG) or convertible points currencies (Amex Membership Rewards, Citibank Rewards, ANZ Rewards).

Several don’t charge forex fees or cash advance fees, which I use for overseas transactions.

I have a tidy up every now and again, but accumulate new ones which keeps the number up. Some aren’t available to new customers, and those which don’t charge annual fees I don’t worry about. A lot of them start life being taken out because of signup bonuses, 2x were opened in the last couple of months, and yielded 180,000 Qantas points between them.

The_Urbanite

Rewards
Amex SPG
Barclaycard Hilton Visa
Creation Asda MC
Creation IHG Black MC
Lloyds Avios Amex/MC
MBNA Horizon Visa
Tesco Clubcard MC
TSB Avios MC

Credit limit across them is around £70k. TSB is the most stingy at £500, but the card is useless in comparison to the others. Never been interested in cashback, there are quicker ways to generate easy money making the points redemptions more valuable to me.

I have a few others that had 0% purchase deals on them which I promptly ripped out to stooze - AA Fuelsave MC which also gave quite generous cashback :rotfl:, Barclaycard Platinum Visa and Tesco MC, but paid them all back. The limits added up to around £30k. When I was at the height of "slow" stoozing my favourite card was the American Express Rewards Credit Card, got rid of that too though.

The interchange fee cap changes have killed off a few cards and most of those in my rewards list aren't available to new applicants - only a matter of time before they drop one by one, apart from the SPG card

Also have countless prepaid cards for R&D purposes though some of them come in handy when on holiday or doing foreign transfers, like Monzo and Revolut.

JGB1955

I have three:


1 x Mastercard (Tesco - get Clubcard points)
1 x Visa (Nationwide, get cashback)
1 x Barclaycard Platinum for overseas cash withdrawls and payments (and cashback).


I always pay off the bill in full each month and have never paid any interest in the past 40 years.

vacheron

I currently have ten.

Eight are 0% purchase or balance transfer cards with about £64,000 spread across them.

The other two are:

• A Halifax Clarity card for travel spending
• A Sainsburys Nectar credit card which all our day to day spending goes on collecting nectar points until such time as another good 0% balance transfer card comes along.

Doshwaster

HSBC Gold - had it forever as a HSBC customer. Never use it apart from putting my Netflix sub on it to keep it alive as it has a big credit limit for emergencies
Barclaycard Cashback - my main spending card but thinking of changing it
Tesco credit card - only use it at Tesco for the extra points
British Airways Amex - useful for some offers
Halifax Clarity - only used abroad