Is it better to close credit cards down?

thisisthecount

I have a question as I have used 0% cards a lot and not have pretty much every credit card you can get. I'm not able to fine any new cards so I was wondering whether or not its wise to close some of them down but my concerns is whether it'll affect my credit rating by doing so? 

The idea is to close them down and then wait and use them again in the future 

MorningcoffeeIV

As always, it depends. 

If you're carrying too much credit, then you might want to close them.

Or you might want to demonstrate that lenders trust you and keep them open.

Any change will drop your credit rating but that's not something you need to worry about. Think only about how lenders will view you.

Brie

It will depend on the card provider if they are likely to offer another deal.  I haven't had one from Barclaycard for several years - basically ever since they thought I was unworthy and slashed my available credit by about 90%.  MBNA always has a deal going.  Santander and M&S frequently too.  

Many cards seem to offer deals for new customers hence people closing accounts and then trying the company several months later.  And they will look at how much credit you have available overall as well as how you use that.  So if you have a couple of cards and £25k available credit and they think you can easily afford another £2k they'll offer you that.  If however you have a couple of cards with £5k and they can't see how you could afford to pay off £5500 in total they are unlikely to offer anything.  It doesn't matter to them if you are actually using the credit available, it's whether you could afford to use it all at the same time.

Hoenir

If you don't actively use the accounts you may find that the credit limits are progressively reduced over time.  Might as well close accounts that you have no intention of using. Any drop in the irrelevant published credit score will only be temporary. Soon revert back to normal. 

thisisthecount

ok so pros and cons there. I think I have every single card going now, most of them have an average of £8K on each, then with a couple having 15K and one being MBNA which is always paid off in full each month has a limit of 22K. really hard to know what to do