How to best increase credit limit for new card?

How to best increase credit limit for new card?

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glazbagun

Original Poster:

14,285 posts

198 months

Wednesday 25th December 2013
quotequote all
Merry Christmas all!

Right, in the next few months I'm going to buy my first car in aaages. I'm not against just buying a shed outright, but to be honest I'd like my first car in five years to be something I'll be happy about rather than it being a necessary appliance, so would like a larger budget.

Anyway, my situation is thus: I currently have a £1K 0%overdraft available from my student account which will expire in April of next year when my account is changed (I've worked straight form uni). I haven't touched my overdraft in about two years (except when shifting money between accounts) and don't expect to ever again, so I'm happy to lose it. I also have a credit card with a limit of £100, which is pretty pointless and another with a limit of £2750. I made a couple of purchases on these years ago during their introductory offers and havent used them since.

Now, rather than getting a loan, I was thinking of ditching all of this credit I never use, getting a new credit card with a 0% introductory offer for as long as possible and using it to purchase a car, making it, in effect a cheap loan which I can hammer down without paying interest and then transfer onto a new card at a later date, using some new introductory balance transfer offer.

Now I'm not quite asking "how do I get £X,XXX credit limit", but what steps should I take to increase the maximum available credit offered on a new card?

Am I better scrapping all my cards and my overdraft ASAP, thus reducing my current exposure to credit, hopefully adding to whatever the new card company will make available to me, or should I be making a few pointless purchases and paying them off ASAP to show how amazing a customer I am? Or is three months too short a time to make a difference anyway?

Sorry for the verbose post, bit merry! smile

Edited by glazbagun on Wednesday 25th December 16:39

glazbagun

Original Poster:

14,285 posts

198 months

Wednesday 25th December 2013
quotequote all
RedWhiteMonkey said:
This probably won't be the answer you want to hear but if you aren't in the financial position to pay your credit cards off each month I really recommend you don't max one out, you'll get ass raped by the credit card company.

The only real way to improve your credit rating is to demonstrate that you can borrow money and pay it back on time. Again, if you can clear your credit card each month your credit rating should improve.
Not sure if I'm misunderstanding or if my rambling post wasn't clear. To clarify: I have no debt (student loan aside), and have two credit cards, balances clear, that have gathered dust for over a year and an overdraft that I haven't used in over a year.

I'm not looking to refinance current debt (as I have none), but rather to maximise the amount of debt a credit card company is likely to offer me in future. I'm just curious as to whether there's something I should do before cancelling all my current credit cards, with this aim in mind.