Is it wise to chop and change?

Q I recently married and paid the hotel bill (around ?5,000) on an interest-free credit card, enabling me to pay off the debt in manageable monthly chunks rather than deplete my savings. At the end of the interest-free period, I intend to transfer the balance to another interest-free credit card. Although I am in full-time employment and reasonably well-paid, if I continue to use credit cards as successive interest-free loans will my credit rating be affected?

GR

A Your financial strategy is a sound one, and you can rest assured that your credit rating shouldn't be adversely affected.

Whenever you make an application for credit, the lender (ie the credit card company or mortgage lender) will carry out a search on your file. Other credit companies can see that the search was carried out because it will be recorded.

However, James Jones, spokesman for the credit reference agency Experian says: "It is true that if you make multiple applications for credit then lenders who look at your file may be concerned. However, searches are only held on file for 12 months, so if you switch cards every six to 12 months, you are not going to rack up so many searches that lenders get concerned. So long as you have a good credit history there is no reason why you should not be able to change cards on a regular basis."