Closing credit card account

[PeonyPatch]

Hello. I’ve got a credit card account that I want to close. I transferred the balance to a 0% interest free card while I pay it off. My husband has said to leave the account open but don’t use it as it shows low utilisation. Is that true? We are going to be remortgaging in the next couple of months, so I don’t wish to harm my credit. Many thanks.

If you want to close it tell the issuer and cut the card into pieces.

I doubt having it open but unused for a bit will affect your score sufficiently to be a problem.

I have 3 cards but only ever use one. When I check clear score a plus point is my low credit utilisation. But, it also can show a risk because you now have a higher level of credit that you can suddenly blow! . Unless they are both very high limits, or you have lots of other debt then I would probably leave both cards open.

I have tens of thousands of pounds of available credit in my name, of which I use maybe £500-£1000 per month (paying it off by DD each month). It's never caused me issues either way.

Lenders look at the whole picture, not just what CC usage you have.

Yeah, so the one I wish to close has a limit of £4.5k

Meanwhile, I have £4k on the 0% interest one.

In my mind, I like the idea of closing the former as it’s just one less card/account isn’t it? And not tempted to use it.

The utilisation does seem to hit from experience. I keep them

Credit score is a fickle thing. Having unused credit cards can be seen as a negative as it means you have instant access to lending closing a card down ca. also have a temporary negative effect on your credit score. If you are going to do it you need to do it now to give it time to recover.

Why not check your credit score? It may give hints on how to improve it. Not using all your credit is a positive and useful to have some credit available even if you don't use it. Does the card have other perks e.g. cashback or rewards or good for overseas spending?