How to renew high limit credit cards?

quirkydeptless

Fighter1986 said:

It takes four to twelve weeks from paying off your card to this actually reflecting on your credit file. Keep an eye on your files to ensure the balances do actually show £0 before applying elsewhere.

This is a good point that I only realised myself when I tracked it and found it took 7 weeks from reducing a balance to it appearing on one of my credit reports, Credit Karma which uses TransUnion, which is updated weekly. It took longer for the monthly updating ones (ClearScore using Equifax, CreditClub using Experian). 

So for my 0% balance card offers ending up till May this year, I had been paying them off early to increase my chance of getting another one. I am prepared though to get no offers, and the gain from the extra stoozing is pretty minimal with current interest rates, so not an big issue for me.

When I do the credit eligibility checks, I usually just get offered expensive credit builder cards with 3-4% transfer fees and poor month lengths as I expect my profile looks like someone really bad at managing debt, but they don't know all my debt is at 0% and has savings ready to pay it all off. Although this seems contrary to my user name, I don't count debt that I'm geared up to pay of at any time as being real debt. I have no problem with the other part of my user name 

dr_adidas01

quirkydeptless said:

Fighter1986 said:

It takes four to twelve weeks from paying off your card to this actually reflecting on your credit file. Keep an eye on your files to ensure the balances do actually show £0 before applying elsewhere.

This is a good point that I only realised myself when I tracked it and found it took 7 weeks from reducing a balance to it appearing on one of my credit reports, Credit Karma which uses TransUnion, which is updated weekly. It took longer for the monthly updating ones (ClearScore using Equifax, CreditClub using Experian). 

So for my 0% balance card offers ending up till May this year, I had been paying them off early to increase my chance of getting another one. I am prepared though to get no offers, and the gain from the extra stoozing is pretty minimal with current interest rates, so not an big issue for me.

When I do the credit eligibility checks, I usually just get offered expensive credit builder cards with 3-4% transfer fees and poor month lengths as I expect my profile looks like someone really bad at managing debt, but they don't know all my debt is at 0% and has savings ready to pay it all off. Although this seems contrary to my user name, I don't count debt that I'm geared up to pay of at any time as being real debt. I have no problem with the other part of my user name 

They do know what your debt will be on 0% as it will show on your credit report as Promotional rate: Y on Experian and similar on Equifax. Trans-Union show it as Promotional Rate: Yes, perhaps they may think your Debt to income ratio is a bit high even if it is on a promotional rate, or they may think that your credit limits are high compared to your income. 

Alex9384

OK, but are we talking about what WE can see on our reports or what LENDERS see?
Free reports always come with a huge delay, whether it's pandemics or not.

Does it mean that I can open 10 new accounts within a week and all these lenders will not be aware of each other?
Last time I applied for a new accounts, just few minutes later I received a notification from Credit Karma about new hard search on my report.

Alex9384

I assume hard search may be different as lenders are pulling info from CRA, so the CRA can let me know immediately, but how is it with reporting payments, account closures, etc.? Do lenders manually review every single account and payment before reporting it? What about credit limit increases? My free Experian credit report was updated yesterday. Balances on my credit cards have changed, but credit limits have not. I increased two CC limits in November.

Fighter1986

Alex9384 said:

OK, but are we talking about what WE can see on our reports or what LENDERS see?
Free reports always come with a huge delay, whether it's pandemics or not.

Does it mean that I can open 10 new accounts within a week and all these lenders will not be aware of each other?
Last time I applied for a new accounts, just few minutes later I received a notification from Credit Karma about new hard search on my report.

When you apply for something, the credit search footprint becomes immediately visible to other lenders who also use the same credit reference agency.

The actual new account itself however may not appear for up to twelve weeks, so while another lender might not see the actual account itself on your credit file yet or how much you owe against it, they will see that you applied for it.

This is why the presence of more than two or three credit search footprints on your credit file in recent months will likely prevent you from passing further credit checks. 

Alex9384

Fighter1986 said:

When you apply for something, the credit search footprint becomes immediately visible to other lenders who also use the same credit reference agency.

The actual new account itself however may not appear for up to twelve weeks, so while another lender might not see the actual account itself on your credit file yet or how much you owe against it, they will see that you applied for it.

This is why the presence of more than two or three credit search footprints on your credit file in recent months will likely prevent you from passing further credit checks. 

That means, in case of Halifax / Lloyds who don't do hard searches if you're already their customer, you can apply for 2 new credit cards and other lenders will not be aware of it for weeks.