Credit card question

[TNGL]

I've got two credit cards:

• Credit card A - £0 balance, £2,000 credit limit
• Credit card B - £3,000 balance, £6,500 credit limit, 0% interest ends in April

Credit card B has offered to increase my credit limit to £12,000. I intended to transfer the balance on credit card B to a new credit card where it will get 0% again.

My questions are:

1. Is it better to not accept the increase in credit limit and then apply for a new credit card? Or will accepting the increased credit limit now allow me to get an even 'better' new credit card (in terms of credit limit)?
2. Alternatively, I could just pay the card off but if it's 0%, why bother?
   
3. If I rarely use using credit card A, would it be a good idea to get rid of it?

I know increasing the limit will lower my overall utilisation % but interestingly, ever since I got credit card B my credit rating has been lower than what it was with just credit card A. This is before any purchases were made on credit card B.

 

[Mike 702]

Although 0% is good, you normally have to pay a transfer fee - although not always.

I would pay it off if you have the cash.

Getting new credit, whether you use it or not will reduce your credit score in the interim (although this is a bit of a generalisation, is generally true)

 

[413x]

I'll have the same coming up in a couple of months .

Id decline the credit increase
Apply for the new card
Get new card (if successful)
Cancel spare card .

Repeat when next offer expires

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

PayPal credit. Interest-free for the first 4 months on EACH spend over £99. So as long as you pay the 1st item off in 4 months, the interest-free rate is perpetually 4 months for every item that you buy thereafter. I've just finished paying off £950 and now I've bought some more items totalling £450 so I'm paying that off now. It's useful if you can't afford to spend the total amount in 1 go but you can afford to chuck £200 at the credit balance every month.

 

[Energize]

Don't decline the increase in credit limit and don't cancel old cards, a low credit utilisation is seen as a good thing.

 

[TNGL]

Don't decline the increase in credit limit and don't cancel old cards, a low credit utilisation is seen as a good thing.

If I am aiming to transfer the balance to a new card, could they not see I have access to £14,000 in credit and decide to either decline me or offer me a lower credit limit on the new card than they otherwise would have? If not, surely one could take out more and more credit cards in perpetuity with it becoming easier each time due to a lower credit utilisation?

 

[413x]

If I am aiming to transfer the balance to a new card, could they not see I have access to £14,000 in credit and decide to either decline me or offer me a lower credit limit on the new card than they otherwise would have? If not, surely one could take out more and more credit cards in perpetuity with it becoming easier each time due to a lower credit utilisation?

Its never really been an issue for me.
I think I have 4 cards
One Amex
One tesco (mastercard)
One amazon
One 0 pc balance offer

That's about 30k of credit. Which is ridiculous. I clear the balance off monthly all but the 0pc.

No problem getting a mortgage with all that either. Don't worry too much about it. Best just to check the websites that do soft checks to assess eligibility

 

[paradigm]

Its never really been an issue for me.
I think I have 4 cards
One Amex
One tesco (mastercard)
One amazon
One 0 pc balance offer

That's about 30k of credit. Which is ridiculous. I clear the balance off monthly all but the 0pc.

No problem getting a mortgage with all that either. Don't worry too much about it. Best just to check the websites that do soft checks to assess eligibility

Exactly this. Having a lot of available credit and low utilization of it is typically seen as a benefit to your credit rating.

No issues at all here with Halifax giving me an extra grand or so every year, doesn’t appear to affect my eligibility for other lines of credit.