vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
The difference in interest is not a huge factor in your decision.  It's about $2 per month.   Personally I would go ahead and knock one out since it's one less to worry about.  Then I would cancel the account and cut that card up so you are not tempted to use it again. To address the comments... Cutting up the card is NOT the ultimate solution.  The solution is to stop borrowing money... Get on a strict budget, live on less than what you bring home, and throw everything you can at this high-interest debt.   The destroying of the card is partly symbolic - it's a gesture to indicate that you're not going to use credit cards at all, or at least until they can be used responsibly, not paying a DIME of interest.  It's analogous to a recovering alcoholic pouring out bottles of booze.  Sure you can easily get more, but it's a commitment to changing your attitude and behavior. Yes leaving the card open will reduce utilization and improve (or not hurt) credit score - but if the goal is to stop borrowing money and pay off the other card, then once that is achieved, your credit score will be significantly improved, and the cancelling of the first card will not matter.  The card (really both cards) should never, ever be used again.
If your credit is good, you should immediately attempt to refinance your high rate credit cards by transferring the balance to credit cards with lower interest rates.You might want to check at your local credit union, credit unions can offer great rates. Use the $4000 to pay off whatever is left on the high rate cards. If your credit is bad, I suggest you call your credit card company and try to negotiate with them. If they consider you a risk they might settle your account for fraction of what you own if you can send payment immediately. Don't tell them you have money, just tell them your are trying to get your finances under control and see what they can offer you. This will damage your credit score but will get you out of depth much sooner and save you money in the long term. Also keep in mind that if they do settle, they'll close your account. That way, you leverage the $4000 and use it as a tool to get concessions from the bank.
"I think they gave you the answer: You haven't previously shown that you can run that particular card up to (near) its existing maximum and then pay it off, so they don't have a strong indication that you can handle that large an unsecured loan. Generally, requests to have the limits raised when there isn't evidence that the customer is finding the current limit inconvenient are going to be considered suspicious. Remember, a great credit rating does not require that they consider you a good risk -- it's just one of the things they consider. Why do you need the limit raised? Have you tried contacting the bank's credit department directly and discussing what they will or won't let you do? Re paying off the card every month: Remember, they do get a processing fee from the vendor. They'd prefer that we paid interest (I'm told the term of art for those of us who don't is ""deadbeats""), but they certainly don't lose money when we don't. And they'd generally rather have us be loyal customers who MIGHT someday pay interest, and who are bringing in fees, than have us go elsewhere."
You should pay things off every month.  You don't want to be paying 10%-25% interest if you don't have to.  If you regularly use you card, the credit agencies can't tell the difference.  The way it works is that every month, they send the credit agencies your current balance and if you paid the last bill on time.  There is nothing that indicates if this is a standing balance, or if you charged all of it since the last payment. Any business that you legitimately owe a debt to can report that to the credit agencies.  Not all of them do.  This includes utilities, cell phone companies, landlords, etc. If any of them report overdue items it will show up on your credit report, and your credit card company can use that to raise you interest rate. Some cards will automatically raise you credit limit.  They are basically looking to make money fro you.  If you often charge near the limit, and pay the minimum balance each month, they may raise your limit to get you to charge more, and pay more interest.  You can also call them and ask.  They have some internal rules to decide if, based on your history with them and your credit history, if you are a good risk.
According to Clark Howard you should use your cards every 6 months to keep them in your active credit score mix.
You could take on more work. Pizza delivery, lawn work, babysitting, housecleaning, etc. None of those are much fun, but all are better than opening a credit card bill.
You may be whacked with currency conversion fees along the way depending on how your card is set up, but with a US$-denominated card, a credit of US$100 should increase your card balance by US$100. So, that $US 100 can be spent on something else instead. In short, the card is your ""bank"" account. You cannot spend more than the remaining balance on the card just like you cannot withdraw more money from your bank account than you have in the account, and you can recharge your card by making more INR payments into it so as to increase the available balance. But it is like a current account in that you are unlikely to earn interest on the balance the way you do with a savings account. So what if you are back in India and have no further use of this card? Can you get your balance back as cash or deposit into your regular bank account? Call the Customer Help line, or read the card agreement you signed."
There is only a catch if you swallow the hook.  The hook is that the bank hopes you will use the increased credit limit to buy more stuff, and not pay what you owe before the interest-free period expires.  This will allow them to charge their high interest rate on the outstanding balance.  Now if you don't increase your spending, and keep paying your balance in full, nothing happens.
Paying weekly to be able to have maneuver room under your credit limit is a way to handle low credit limits. Doing it to boost your credit score when you have no immediate need for a loan is wasting energy.  A few months in advance of buying a car or house, you can start to worry about your utilization rate. When you apply for the loan they will pull your credit file, and that will lock in your utilization rates. Then make sure that you pay the balance quickly, and if you need to make a big purchase pay the bill before the account closes for the month. Keep in mind that if you pay the balance every month the highest utilization rate will occur the day the payment is due. This is because it not only has all the purchases from the previous bill, but all the purchases you have made since that bill closed. For example if you have a credit limit of 10K and you spend 2K a month on the credit card, on the day the payment is due it is not unusual to see the total owed to be above 3K. If they pulled your file on that day, your utilization rate would appear to be above 30%.
I've kind of been there myself.  I stretched my finances for the deposit on a house, and lived off my credit card for a few months to build up what I was short on the deposit.  Add some unexpected car repairs, and I ended up with £10k on the card.  The problem I had then was that interest on the card ran at around 20%, and although I could meet the interest payments I couldn't clear the £10k. I simply went and talked to my bank.  In the UK there are some clear rules about banks giving customers a chance to restructure their debts.  That's the BANK doing it, not some shady loan-shark.  We went through my finances and established that in principle it was repayable.  So I got a 2-year unsecured loan at around 5%, cleared the card, and spent the next 2 years paying off a loan that I could afford.  My credit score is still aces. Forget the loan-sharks.  Talk to your bank.  If they're crap, talk to another bank.  If no bank is going to help you, consider bankrupcy as per advice above.  Debt restructuring companies are ALWAYS a con, no exceptions.
It sort of sounds like you want to contradictory things: (1) to fix your credit so you will be able to get loans and (2) to have more money available to spend now. It sounds like the latter is probably not possible.  Not without getting into a worse situation than you are currently in (based on what you have written the next step is payday loans and the like, which is basically financial suicide). Fixing your credit is simple.  It's just not fun.  Cut your spending.  Cut it way, way, way down.  You will certainly have to change your lifestyle. I'd suggest taking a second job. Make the minimum payment on everything, then put all your extra money toward the most pressing things: I would focus on the former.  As you pay down your debt your utilization will go down, and this will raise your score automatically.  When you pay off your highest interest rate debt, don't change your spending.  Instead put everything you were putting to that to the next highest debt you have.  Continue until your highest interest rate loan is at or below the mortgage rate. When you get to this point you will notice that your credit score is vastly better and you are no longer spending all your money on interest.  You will probably be in a position to buy a home.  And you will have the satisfaction of knowing you did it yourself, rather than having a bankruptcy judge force you to change your lifestyle. A note on the items in collections: make sure they are all legit.  If any are wrong, it is pretty straightforward to contest them with the credit bureaus and get them taken off.  Things in collections will drop your score severely.
If you want to stay in the sub 30% range to avoid 'high utilization' on your card, make sure your credit is > 3.33x your usage.  For your numbers, a 2500 limit would probably keep you out of 'high utilization'. The primary reason to do this is to stay off your lender's 'high risk' list.  Due to the risk perceived by CCC's, accounts with greater than 30% utilization are reported as high utilization. Keep in mind that utilization does not have a history.  So you can drop your utilization a couple of billing cycles before you apply for a high cost item (e.g. car or house) and your score should bump up a bit.
Having a cushion / emergency fund will hopefully keep you from having to build up any more debt once your cards are paid off.  I would increase your payments on the 2% cards to a point where you feel comfortable in how much of a cushion you have.  Keep your payments steady on the 0% card. Be careful and watching your statements each month, often having a credit problem in another account (electric bill, cable bill, etc) will allow credit card companies to jack up your rates unexpected.  If that does happen, you've still got an emergency fund to pay them down quickly in the future.
"You have a lack of credit history.  Lending is still tight since the recession and companies aren't as willing to take a gamble on people with no history. The secured credit card is the most direct route to building credit right now. I don't think you're going to be applicable for a department store card (pointless anyways and encourages wasteful spending) nor the gas card. Gas cards are credit cards, funded through a bank just like any ordinary credit card, only you are limited to gas purchases at a particular retailer. Although gas cards, department store cards and other limited usage types of credit cards have less requirements, in this post-financial crisis economy, credit is still stringent and a ""no history"" file is too risky for banks to take on. Having multiple hard inquiries won't help either. You do have a full-time job that pays well so the $500 deposit shouldn't be a problem for the secured credit card. After 6 months you'll get it back anyways. Just remember to pay off in full every month. After 6 months you'll be upgraded to a regular credit card and you will have established credit history."
"The bottom line is that you are kind of a terrible customer for them.   Granted you are far better than one that does not pay his bills, but you are (probably) in the tier right above that. Rewards cards are used to lure the unorganized into out of control interest rates and late payments.  These people are Capital One's, and others, best customers.  They have traded hundreds of dollars in interest payments for a couple of dollars in rewards.  The CC company says:  ""YUMMY""! You, on the other hand, cut into their ""meager"" profits from fees collected from your transactions.  Why should they help you make more money?  Why should they further cut into your profits? Response to comment: Given your comment I think the bottom line is a matter of perspective.  You seem like a logical, altruistic type person who probably seeks a win-win situation in business dealings.  This differs from CC companies they operate to seek one thing:  enslavement. BTW the ""terrible customer"" remark should be taken as a compliment.   After you get past the marketing lies you begin to see what reward programs and zero percent financing is all about.  How do most people end up with 21%+ interest rates?  They started with a zero percent balance loan, and was late for a payment. Reward cards work a bit differently.  Studies show that people tend to spend about 17% more when they use a reward card.  I've caught myself ordering an extra appetizer or beer and have subsequently stopped using a reward card for things I can make a decision at the time of purchase.  For people with tight budgets this leads to debt. My ""meager"" profits paragraph makes sense when you understand the onerous nature of CC companies.  They are not interested in earning 2% on purchases (charge 3% and give back 1%) for basically free money.  You rightly see this as what should be a win-win for all parties involved.  Thus the meager in quotation marks.  CC companies are willing to give back 1% and charge 3% if you then pay 15% or more on your balance. Some may disagree with me on the extracting nature of CC companies, but they are wrong.  I like him as an actor, but I don't believe Samuel Jackson's lines."
"Unless you have a history of over-using credit (i.e. you've gotten yourself into debt trouble), then I think that the banker is giving you bad advice in telling you to get your own credit limit reduced.  Having more credit available to you that is left unused will make your utilization ratio lower, which is generally better for your credit score, according to this article on CreditKarma.com.  The ""sweet spot"" seems to be 1-20% utilization of your total credit.  (But remember, this is only one factor in your credit score, and not even the biggest-- having a long history of on-time payments counts the most.) My own personal experience seems to bear this out.  I have two major credit cards that I use.  One card has a high credit limit (high for me anyway) and I use it for just about everything that I buy-- groceries, gas, durable goods, services, you name it.  The other card has a limit that is about 1/3 of the first, and I use it for a few recurring bills and occasional purchases where they don't take the first card.  I also have a couple of department store cards that I use rather infrequently (typically 1 purchase every 3 months or so).  At the end of each month, when the respective statements post, each card has a balance that is 15% or less of the credit limit on that card.  I pay off the entire balance on each card each month, and the cycle repeats.  I have never been late on a payment, and my credit history for all of these cards goes back 10 years.  My credit score is nearly as high as it can go.  If having unused credit were a detriment, I would expect my score to be much lower. So, no, having ""too much credit available"" is not going to hurt you, unless you are not using it at all, or are tempted to abuse it (use too much).  The key is to use common sense.  Have a small number of cards, keep them active, spend within your means so you can pay off the balance in full after the statement posts, and never be late on your payments.  That's all it takes to have good credit."
I have found that between the Discover card and a Visa/Master Card a person has everything covered. In my case the Discover card had the best deal (cash back) and the Visa/Master Card took care of those times a vendor didn't take Discover. One big Box store (Costco) did trip us up, so we did end up getting an American Express card. But Costco is dropping that requirement in 2016. One advantage of only having a few cards is that the increase in your total credit line will be split among fewer cards. In your question the highest  max limit on one card is $2500, what will you do if you have to take a flight at the last minute and the Airline ticket is more than that? If you need a higher limit, ask for one of your existing cards to raise it; don't go out and get another card. If you see that one of the companies that you already have a card with has a better card, you can ask them to convert your account to that better card.  Yes higher total limit does help your utilization ratio portion of the score. But there is some opinion that they also look at the utilization ratio per card. So hitting one card to nearly the max can hurt your score. Three caveats about the number of cards:
I know you say you are aware of secured and unsecured debt and you've made your decision.  Did you do the numbers?  You will pay 44k over the life of the mortgage for that 24k (Based on 4.5% APR mortgage). Once you refinance your mortgage, do you plan on using credit for a while?  Lots of Americans are hyperfocused on credit scores.  The only times it affects your life are when you finance something, when you apply to rent a house or apartment, and sometimes when you apply for a job.  Credit score should not be a factor in this decision. You're borrowing the money at a lower rate to pay off the high rate cards because you want to pay less in interest.  Considering #1 is there any reason NOT to pay off the cards immediately, if not sooner?
Credit card limits are, for the most part, soft limits; sometimes, a credit card will allow you to charge a little over your limit. The large amount they allowed you to go over your limit is unusual, but not unheard of.  It is your responsibility to keep track of how much you charge on your credit card, not the bank. Just like with a checking account, you are supposed to keep track of everything you charge so that you always know how much you have spent and can pay it off.  Raising your limit will not help your problem; it would only make it worse. You have already charged more than you can afford, and they have already effectively raised your limit by $1200.  I realize that this situation is tough, but fortunately, you have a learning opportunity here. I recommend you resolve to stop using the credit card in this way, and work toward paying off your debt to zero. At that point, treat your credit card as if it was a debit card, and only charge what you already have in the bank to pay off right away. (Or, just use a debit card and get rid of the credit card.) Learning to do this now will save you lots of money in interest.  If you don't learn to do this, you will find yourself in even more debt in the future, and it will be even harder to dig yourself out.  If you need some more help on getting out of debt and learning to budget your money, I recommend the book The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.
Between half a year and a year should be enough to improve your interest rates drastically on car loan refinance. Make sure that your new credit card has already been reported to the agencies, and that the credit/debt ratio is lower than 30% on your revolving (credit card) accounts. That also means that you shouldn't carry too much balance, even if the APR is 0%.
"As long as you're not trying to get a higher limit in order to actually spend more money, or might be tempted to do so, it's generally advantageous to have a higher limit if available. A large part of credit score is based on utilization rate (balance due at statement closing divided by credit limit). Basically, you want more than 0% and less than 30% or preferably less than 10% used. Doubling your credit limit halves your utilization rate. And it can be comforting to have it there ""in case you need it"" in some sort of emergency scenario. Caveats: There's no ""right"" or ""default"" amount of credit that you ""should have"" at any given point in your life. If you're using credit responsibly, and don't need more credit, there's no particular reason to ask for more credit. If you work at it and are patient, it's easy to eventually have tens of thousands of dollars of unused credit limits, but that doesn't really get you anywhere you need to be by itself."
I agree with JoeTaxpayer that you will be better off in the end if you can just not use your card you are better off in the long run.  That said if you are determined to get a card you can control go to a credit union or local bank.  Most of them will give you the credit limit you want.  This may provide you with a card that you can make use of but know that you can not go wild.  The down side is most of these will not be reward cards but my local credit union gave me a 7% card where my Chase card is at 18%(was 5% before the changes to credit card regulations).
"The real reason credit cards are so popular in the US is that Americans are lazy and broke, and the credit card companies know how to market to that.  Have you ever heard of the $30k millionaires? These were individuals that purchased as if they were some of the wealthy elite, but had no real money to back it up. American society has pushed the idea of ""living on credit"" for quite some time now. An idea that is even furthered by watching the US government operate solely on credit. (Raise the debt ceiling much?) Live in America for more than six months and you will be bombarded with ""Pre-Approved Deals"" with low introductory rates that are designed to sucker the average consumer into opening multiple accounts that they don't need. Then, they try and get you to carry a balance by allowing low minimum payments that could take in the neighborhood of 20 years to pay off, depending on carried balance. This in turn pads the credit companies' pockets with all of the interest you now pay on the account. The few truly wealthy Americans do not purchase on credit."
Everyone else seems to have focused (rightly so) on the negatives of credit cards (high interest rates) and why it is important to pay them off before interest starts accruing. Only Marin's answer briefly touched on rewards.  To me, this is the real purpose of credit cards in today's age.  Most good rewards cards can get you anywhere from 1-2% cash back on ALL purchases, and sometimes more on other categories.  Again, assuming you can pay the balance in full each month, and you are good at budgeting money, using a credit card is an easy way to basically discount 1-2% of all of the spending you put on your card.  AGAIN - this only works to your advantage if you pay off the credit card in full; using the above example of 20% interest, that's about 1.6% interest if the interest compounds monthly, which wipes out your return on rewards if you just go one month without paying off the balance.