Credit Cards - How many is too many?

[Lostprophet]

Hi,

I have five credit cards;

- one amex I use to travel/work/daily costs - has a £19k credit limit
- two cards with balance transfers (interest free for 4 years) - low credit limits
- two cards which are not used and have no balance - each have £18k credit limits.

In the back of my head I am thinking having so many cards is not good for the credit score. I am reluctant to close the 2 unused cards down due to their credit limit.

Ideally I would like to move the balances on the two smaller cards to a larger card and then close them down. Unfortunately no decent offers are available.

I wont ever use so much credit... it's insane however if a rainy day arrives then cards with such high limits are handy.

Any advice on offer please?

regards,
LP

[Vocal Minority]

Log in to experian and have a look at your credit score, and see if the cards affect it.

I am truly the voice of experience with my 1 card with its comparatively very poxy limit!

[toon10]

I have 2. A corporate one for work and a personal one which I've not used in about 3 years but still have about £3k outstanding on it. Now I earn more I don't need ot use it as a backup but I'm loathed to pay it off when the monthlies are so low

[Esseesse]

I've never had a credit card.

[Greshamst]

It varies, but lenders tend to look at your overall credit risk, and this can be affected negatively by a lot of available unused credit.

I.e they look at what would happen if st hit the fan, and suddenly you used all the credit available to you. Could you pay back the £x amount to them, if you suddenly had £36k of credit card debt.

I would personally keep on of the £18k cards, having a high limit is a positive factor, but cancel the other unused ones to keep your overall available limits down.

You could always apply for another card if st hit the fan, before you got into dire straits.

[Composite Guru]

I have 2.

A Tesco one that I load up and pay off every month and a Barclaycard I use for emergencies for extra funds if need be.

[Lostprophet]

I guess I have £65k in credit card limits. It's silly.

I guess I will need to cut down on the number of cards.

Is it the number of cards (i.e. lenders) or total credit card limit which is an issue?

[Downward]

Just applied for 1.

I feel it's needed for my holiday, previously it's always been a mission hiring a car with debit card only and always had to argue the toss.

I'll set up the direct debit to pay off the whole amount and not tell the wife !

[Greshamst]

Lostprophet said:

I guess I have £65k in credit card limits. It's silly.

I guess I will need to cut down on the number of cards.

Is it the number of cards (i.e. lenders) or total credit card limit which is an issue?

The number of cards doesn't matter so much, but the limits available do.

You could always sign up to clearscore to get your credit file (it's free), and they spell out the negative and positive factors related to your individual credit file.

[MrJuice]

I've got two. One has a 10k limit. Other is not strictly a credit card but a charge card. So the balance has to be paid off each month

I have the latter purely for the points. Not sure if and how a charge card affects ones credit rating

[RDMcG]

Only need two for myself. Amex because of points and great concierge/travel service and Visa as backup. Amex not always accepted. Cleared monthly.
Credit scores are more complex than just payment history and available credit. They take a wide number of factors into account though financial institutions are very tight about exactly goes into the recipe.

[AyBee]

I've got 2 (plus a work one) - both c.£10k limits. I use the Amex every day because it gives me cashback and I use the other one when people don't accept Amex Both get paid off in full at the end of every month.

[pmanson]

Two here as well.

1x AMEX (with my wife as supplementary card holder / i'm also a supplementary card holder on her account - only used to get the sign up bonus/referral)

1x Nationwide VISA. £4k limit. Used for work expenses when AMEX is not accepted. Also gives me commission free usage abroad

I did have an MBNA Mastercard but closed that last year after 6/7 years as it wasn't being used. My credit score did take a dip (according to Noddle) but seems to have pretty much fully recovered over the last couple of months

[romeogolf]

3 cards.

1 x Amex (with partner as secondary card holder) for majority of spending. Credit limit is about £8k.
1 x Santander 123 (also with partner as secondary) for anything where Amex isn't taken and also for fuel/rail tickets (3% cashback). About £3k credit limit.
1 x First Direct Gold with 0%. No balance on this but it's there "just in case". About £1500 credit limit.

[oldaudi]

Ive got 3 cards, got into a bit of trouble when I was younger and needed to transfer money around to get 0%. I still have them and for some reason the smaller amounts I have outstanding on them, the more I get offered increased limits. I have a total of £63K available to me. How scary is that. I only use one now for work travel where we have to pay everything ourselves and then claim it back. No idea if having that amount of credit available and not using it impacts your finance record. Ive not tried to get anything other than my mortgage

[Alex]

Credit cards are evil. I used to have £50k of credit available across 3 credit cards. It was sometimes too tempting/easy to dip into this reserve and the resulting debt can take a long time to clear. I paid them all off and cut them up. I now use my debit card and an AMEX chargecard only.

[Defcon5]

I had a barclaycard and a lloyds one, just use them to bounce 0% offers from one to the other instead of getting loans

[AB]

I have an IHG card which I use for all work related spending, hotels, fuel etc which gets paid off by direct debit at the end of each month when my expenses are paid to me.

I also have Virgin Atlantic (AMEX and Visa) which my wife has a joint card on which gets used for all monthly expenses we incur which we then pay when the monthly bill comes in.

Works well as I have plenty of IHG points and keeps my Spire Elite membership up so some good perks.

VA card gets the air miles for our holiday upgrades.

Probably £30k of available spending and probably don't put more than £2k on each a month.

I'm going to see what my credit report looks like.

[Cotty]

Vocal Minority said:

I am truly the voice of experience with my 1 card with its comparatively very poxy limit!

I only have one, not sure if it is still active as they were going to cancel it as it had not been used for so long.

[Zippee]

I have 2, 1 Amex platinum cash back at 1.5% and an RBS mastercard.
I use the Amex as much as possible for the cashback and the mastercard for where Amex is not accepted.
Both paid in full end of each month. I don't see the point in any more as I'd never want to go anywhere near the limit of either of my current ones let alone others, especially given the interest rates attached (unless you're on a special offer 0%).