All Things Credit (Cards, Limits, Scores)

Greggs is a hit :sob:

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Well it’s a problem that they don’t accept Amex. Agreed the vast majority do accept Amex and the ā€˜workaround’ is to use a non Amex in them places. But it’s still an issue… be it a minor issue

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If the ā€œworkaroundā€ is something that virtually everyone will be able to achieve quite easily, is it a ā€œproblemā€? Semantics. I’d say an Amex cardholder doesn’t have any ā€œproblemā€ shopping there.

Quite often there’s no indication that the card isn’t accepted until it declines, so I’d say it’s a problem; but it’s an incredibly minor one.

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I think at work someone using a Discover crashed the till system and I just messaged my manager a pic like ā€œwtfā€

Just coming back on here to offer an update!
I haven’t yet closed my Capital One credit card however Monzo Flex will let me increase my limit by quite a significant amount.
Think I’ll probably increase my Flex limit then close my CapitalOne account which I don’t use since having Flex and Amex together.

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Found a nice balance with rewards cards.

BA Amex £12,000 limit
HSBC Rewards £5000 limit

I’m thinking about doing the Barclaycard BA card as I got my Amex bonus now.

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Which BA Amex? The free one or the paid one?

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Would love to see Chase release their Credit Card soon, wondering how it also may compare to their US counterparts. Obviously less rewards, but 1.5% Cashback is not impossible hopefully

We’ve been renovating the house over the last year and now we want to buy some furniture. Next do interest free, but some bits from other places, a local place has sofas we like (DFS don’t have the one we like in any showroom, online only :man_shrugging:) so I thought I’d buy it all, then move it to a 0% credit card.

Tesco are doing up to 30 months 0% atm and Credit Karma says that I’m 95% likely to be accepted. Bonza.

Applied. It asked me what credit limit I wanted, I said Ā£5k. This will cover everything I need/want with some left over incase there’s something else to add or the price goes up by the time I get there, didn’t want to be right on the limit and I know you can’t balance transfer up to your full limit.

They’ve given me an Ā£11k limit!

I’m older and more sensible now but there would have definitely been a point in my yoof that I had my planned Ā£4k spend and then went and bought an iPad/iMac, more clothes etc.

I think it’s so irresponsible to give me more than double the limit I asked for. And there was me worried when I applied that I might not get the Ā£5k I wanted!

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Congrats on getting the card you needed with a more than helpful limit! Just out of curiosity, have you found credit limits to correlate to your income, or more so do you think a better credit history gives higher limits? ie assuming a good clean credit file (no missed payments, revolving credit managed well, etc…) if someone’s monthly income was Ā£3000 per month would you expect a limit around Ā£3000 or have you seen it spit out sometimes 1.5x-3x the income?

My income has probably doubled since I last applied for a card, so very hard to judge.

I don’t know what the max they’d give me would have been. I don’t think salary is related to what I can pay back each money because I certainly don’t earn Ā£10k a month!

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I applied for an RBS credit card a few months ago and my existing overall limit was about 150% of my annual salary, and they still gave me Ā£8,000 which was a lot more than I needed or expected from it (can’t remember if it asked for the limit I wanted but I never enter those anyway). When I opened 2 cards with NatWest last year they gave me Ā£5,050 on both (one since closed), so was strange that RBS gave so much more considering it’s the same group.

Halifax and Lloyds however (again same group obviously) showed an estimated limit (which turned into the actual limit when I was accepted) which was directly proportional to the income I entered, something like 12% of annual income. I did a few pre-approval checks and if I changed the salary by a few grand either way the limit would go up and down by £100 each time directly in proportion.

So it will vary a lot by provider. Maybe Halifax used 12% of income for me but would use 10% for some and 20% for others based on other factors, who knows.

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Really useful info thanks!

I’ve never been able to find accurate information about this really. My overall limit is a bit silly at 1.5x my salary but spread thin over a lot of cards where only 1 has a 5-figure limit. I have some I spend on routinely, some I leave for bigger things, some I leave for potential future balance transfers so they can be left alone. So I have all bases covered.

I planned to maybe one day lower some limits, and the only information I can find about the effects of lowering limits is that it can negatively impact your score, but seemingly only on the basis that it could increase your overall utilisation. However, having got myself debt free this month, I don’t carry a balance on any cards beyond the monthly statement periods so my utilisation is at like <1%.

In terms of applying for new credit tho, it hasn’t hindered me as I opened 3 cards in the last few months which increased my overall limit by about 25%. Theoretically having credit but not using much of it is supposed to be a good thing as it shows you can be ā€œtrustedā€ to handle it, but again likely varies with who you ask.

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I’ve also heard a lot of theories about credit scores and some even say they are useless. One rule most talk about is using less than 30% of your utilisation. I’ve got a Ā£5K card and monzo flex I have Ā£1500. However I’m considering closing my flex as I only like to keep balances on one card and considering my other card is a higher limit it perfect. I also know that once Monzo realise I’m not using the card/bank they may close my accounts anyway as I’ve recently been emailed about their new terms etc and in there it says about Monzo having the right to close accounts. This is possibly down to me moving my salary away from Monzo to Ulster and along with all my direct debits so they are already onto me haha

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The scores themselves are only a guide at best, but different factors have an impact with each agency. For example when I had a higher balance on specific cards, I dropped 2 cards below 50% utilisation each, and then below 25% utilsiation each, and my TransUnion (Credit Karma) score increased each time it went below those thresholds, whereas Equifax (Clearscore) was already at 1000/1000 so didn’t care about utilsiation in the first place.

Lenders probably won’t want to see super high utilsiation, but again maybe if a few cards have high and you have others with very low it balances out.

You love to jump to conclusions! Monzo will not shut your account because you’ve moved your salary/DDs to another bank.

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My utilisation is higher than usual because I put something expensive on Flex, but Credit Karma are telling me to get my utilisation down but also to increase my limits because I only have £15k.

My total credit limit is twice my annual income but I’m only using about 2% of it. I just don’t like closing accounts that I’ve had for years.

The email explains exactly under what circumstances they reserve the right to close your account and it’s not because you moved to Ulster Bank.

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