Cancel old credit cards - impact on credit rating?

[Shaoxter]

I've recently obtained a Santander 123 credit card (0% on purchases & balance transfers for 2 years woohoo) and I feel I have too many of them now.

I've now got 8 active credit cards (of which I only really use 3 or 4) with over £70k credit limit in total. I'm sticking everything on the Santander card so will it negatively impact my credit rating if I close the unused cards as my credit card balance would make up a larger proportion of the total available credit? Or is having too many credit cards bad for your rating also?

Applying for a mortgage in the near future, and it's the first time I've been using a 0% card and building up a balance.

[Crombers]

Over the last 12 months I've been clearing down my debt which has been hanging about for far too long. The result of which has been that I've paid off and closed 2 of 4 credit cards and two personal loans. Since then my credit rating has taken a beating as it clearly shows I had maxed my available credit were truth is I didn't need or want 'everyday' credit (until it came to changing the car where one lender declined).

Big mistake by the looks of it, In hindsight I would have paid off and retained the cards until such times when all balances were zero and then decide on which cards to keep.

I can now see my score start to improve with only a couple of grand remaining on a 0% rate and a healthy amount of availability.

[turbobloke]

On the other hand, what 'the computer' sees as an excess of unused credit may also lower a score i.e. if there are several empty cards with high limits but no balance. According to the nice lady at Experian. I like to use 0% finance where it's available and have carried on with empty cards at times, regardless of the advice. A point worth considering is that anyone accessing your credit file won't see your score, unless you give it to them of course, but that's another matter. They'll see all the information in your credit record and then apply their own algorithm to it. They may also ask for more information than the credit reference people do when they allocate a score.

[Nickyboy]

Crombers said:

Over the last 12 months I've been clearing down my debt which has been hanging about for far too long. The result of which has been that I've paid off and closed 2 of 4 credit cards and two personal loans. Since then my credit rating has taken a beating as it clearly shows I had maxed my available credit were truth is I didn't need or want 'everyday' credit (until it came to changing the car where one lender declined).

.

This

I did the same, i thought by reducing the credit limits it would look better but it made it worse as it looked like it needed all the credit i had.
Now a couple of years later the card companies have upped the limits and my credit report looks a lot better

[RobinBanks]

As a similar question, I have a few credit cards that I use with token low limits (one is £500 and the other £750) that I use to make a couple of purchases on each each month to keep myself active with credit (otherwise I would be doing nothing on credit, which sounds bad).

I had a letter offering to increase the limit of the £500 card (HSBC) and I declined it. Would I have done better to increase it?


I chose the limit for each rather than being offered.