When I was with Tymit (a total of 3 months) I had a notification badge on the app which never went away at all!
Got approved instantly too, then extra checks took two days. Wanted it for emergency, rather than lifting emergency fund! Had car bill which wasn’t expecting until end of year, but got it for next time now!!!
I wouldn’t worry about that. The CRAs don’t seem to be able to decide themselves whether that’s a good or a bad thing! Credit Karma moans that I’m not using enough of my available credit but the other two praise me for it.
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The CRA’s job is to report the facts of your credit affairs. Lenders will make their own decisions as to how these facts (including how much credit you have available / utilised) affects their risk in lending to you.
Any scores/advice CRA’s/Credit Karma assign to your credit history is just an attempt to direct you to one of a limited selection of credit products where they can earn a commission…
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This is true to a certain extent and hence why I said that it was nothing to worry about. However, there is definitely a correlation between “credit score” and your chance of being accepted. A lender can’t see your score but they can see the elements of your credit record that are used to create that score. A CRA can’t just assign you an arbitrary score because they want commission from lenders.
There will always be cases of people with low scores being accepted and those with high scores being rejected, though.
All true but I think you’re putting too much importance on a number a credit broker has made up to steer you towards particular products. There are too many dimensions to distill all this data down to a single number that plugs into any lender’s own secret lending criteria.
Its just a guide - you can have a perfect credit score, but if you earn £1,000/year you won’t be transferring that £100k credit card balance! Consider also that a lender probably has a better idea what score the CRA has calculated for you than the CRA has about how the lender will ‘score’ your data.
I did a balance transfer recently. A CRA told me despite having a ‘perfect score’ I wasn’t likey to be accepted by the card I wanted - applied after clearing cookies (to make sure they didn’t get a commission!) and I was accepted. I suspect this was less about my credit history and more about the amount of commission the CC provider would pay the CRA.
So now I’m wondering do a cut up one of my old cards. How many cards is too many? How much credit is too much? Nobody knows…
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As an update, my urgent purchase turned out to be not so urgent at all – at least I was able to get away with a deposit for now
This allows me some more time to think – I could just pay it from my emergency pot and be done with it, but I was doing so well building it up so 0% deals are always tempting
Tymit would be quite good as I don’t think there’s a limit on how many purchases you can spread over 3 months, is there? They also let you do this at any point after opening?
Or I could get a 20 month 0% card and just put bigger (planned, within budget) purchases on it to make my money work harder. I might also be able to put my new kitchen on this if I get a big enough credit limit! But then I’d have to close the card and open a new one after the end of the 0% period. Hmm
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Use the emergency pot surely? If you have cash then I’d pay it off rather than delaying it. 
Are you thinking in case you have another emergency before the emergency pot recovers?
The badge icon on the app is the messages on the main page IE tap here to activate your card and whatever else in grey under your balance.
Thanks
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I guess it’s just why touch my Bonds if I can spread over 0% interest plans
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