Should I Cancel Previous Cards?

Zebedee69

Spark wrote: »

From Equifax Credit Rating

Credit grantors prefer that you have at least one or two accounts as part of your credit profile. Active accounts are preferred to settled accounts.

So you can keep two or three and discard the rest.

That sounds about right...........

carguy

Agree with the cancel by phone. I've done it before, but I would make sure they send you some sort of confirmation of the closing

GeorgeUK

Time to jump in again.

If you aren't going to use the credit again, then there is no problem with getting rid of the cards, although as credit as starting to become harder to come by you should probably keep a card or 2.

You should also keep your credit if it will assist you in paying off your mortgage. There seem to be more and more companies that offer linked mortgage accounts so that the amount in your current account is deducted from your mortgage, so the more you have in your current account the less you will be paying in interest. If the cards allow "super balance transfers" which allow BT not only to other CC but also your current account - using this @ 0% is going to save you on your mortgage interest. After the 0% period runs out, just transfer the funds back to your CC.

Thought that may be worth mentioning.

hillendale

Zebedee69 wrote: »

Oh yes it does, are you suggesting that you keep every card you have ever had open? What happens when you have 20 cards open with £100,000 available credit?........ Tell me your joking mate realy this is a moneysaving forum not an old wives tale forum:rotfl:

If a company does a search and see's 5 cards open, 2 being used and 3 sitting there with no balance and a good few grand limit..... Are you saying they are not going to find that odd?.....

Cancel what you dont need and make sure its marked S for settled on your credit file. Its the only way ha ha!

I have several credit cards with a total available limit of 110k and have never had a probelms .

Durrsaku

I have just cancelled and closed 5 credit cards. Did them all by phone. They had been used for BT in the past and were just gathering dust. I have still 3 existing ones, 1 with the current BT on it with 0% interest and the other two with no money and i intend to close them too. If you are not using them there is no point in having them.
Credit will not e affected. I feel much better doing so. After all i joined this forum to become free of debt. Credit card lenders will always need customers so i don't foresee any problems obtaining another card if need be but the general idea is to be debt free and never having to use one ever again.

Bismarck

I'm with Hillendale on that one...with the rules changing so much at the moment regarding applying for new cards, and keeping a card with a free £10K limit costing me nothing but space in my safe, I don't see the need to cut it up. It's always there if I need an emergency loan or to shuffle existing credit. I'm not proud of having debt it but I'm damned if I'm going to be held hostage over the interest I'm paying cos I can't shift it anywhere else without applying for a new card....each to their own.....our circumstances are all different which is something we should always remember.

The key thing to me is that when we make our choices they're a lot more informed than they would be if we didn't have our shared experiences....

hillendale

plus you have the chance of repeat offers if you retain the cards , i have found that once you have a few cards you tend to receive new offers from your existing card companies which allow you to balance transfer without new credit checks . My rule is i never miss any payments and always clear the balance @ the end of the offer .It does take a while to built good limits on all your cards but it can be done . But @ the end of the day its horses for courses & if you feel that closing your unused cards down that prefectly fine .
regards