Age of your massive card collections?

[wasCB14]

For those of you who have like 20+ cards...for how long have you had them?

I have a suspicion that most people with huge lineups get tired of the effort in tracking them after a while...or get AA'ed...or refuse to provide tax returns. I guess I'm curious to learn how many people will get 20 cards and still have them open 1/3/5 years later.

I'm not talking about bonus chasing followed by closing or consolidating cards...or about cards on which you're an AU that someone else monitors.

I'm talking about getting 20+ cards with the intention of keeping them. Who here opened a lot of cards in or before 2014 and still has most or all of them? I understand many people come here as rebuilders and post less as their credit improves, so some 2014 accumulators won't be reading this thread.

For those of you who purged your mega-lineups (or had them taken away from you)...for how long were you keeping the same 20+ cards open?

[manyquestions]

I have about 30 open with most of them between three and ten years old.  I enjoy the credit game so I don't find it to be a burden. I keep track of the cards in a spreadsheet and they are all set up on autopay. Some people enjoy the game while others find it to be a hassle to have more than two or three cards. It's like anything else. Do what works for you. 

[Gmood1]

I don't meet your 2014 standard by a year. I did obtain most of my CCs in 2015. I have no intention of closing any of the current line up. I use an App (Mint) to track my accounts. It doesn't keep me up at night or stress me at all. My line up is small compared to the pros here. Lol

Funny thing is, even with my current cards. I'm constantly badgered by current lenders and some that I'm not with to apply for their CC. The folklore of AA and lenders being spooked is something I just haven't seen as yet. I've never been denied for having "too much available credit". Come back and asked me in 3 years. Chances are I'll still have them and probably a couple of more. 😉

[AverageJoesCredit]

Lol, Gmood, agree with your 2015+, thats when i started my rebuild and its ridunkuloud how many cards i got in only 2 years. I like to call this period my Big Bang era i deriously dont mind having 20+ cards as it doesnt take but s few minutes to verify all these accounts but i may hit that plateau or point where, becsuse my spend is more limited due to income level i may just KISS my credit and go 3 or 4 just to not worry where im going to put spend on.

[Gmood1]

---

@AverageJoesCredit wrote:
Lol, Gmood, agree with your 2015+, thats when i started my rebuild and its ridunkuloud how many cards i got in only 2 years. I like to call this period my Big Bang era i deriously dont mind having 20+ cards as it doesnt take but s few minutes to verify all these accounts but i may hit that plateau or point where, becsuse my spend is more limited due to income level i may just KISS my credit and go 3 or 4 just to not worry where im going to put spend on.

---

Absolutely nothing wrong with that my friend. I understand completely. I love having choices, went many years without them. I like the bonuses and discounts that having a variety of CCs give. I recently switched my phone service and TV service over. I made $275 just for changing service! If I didn't have my line up..I would have earned $100 for switching.😀 

The average consumers have no idea how much free money they miss out on, by not having some of these cards.

[AverageJoesCredit]

Thats true. Other day i had to get some car maintenance done and all i could think of is with what card can i get the most bang for my buck lol. One reason im starting to favor reward cards is just that at least you get back something for your spend versus not. So whether its 5 or 10 bucks back its better than 0 so... i decided to put it on my Navy card for though it wasnt my best return like my Dc, i still get back 1.5 plus i really want to establish myself with Navy in hopes that i can get one of those epic increases

[sunkissed]

I have a bunch of cards (27). My two oldest cards were opened in 2003. One I plan to keep (BoA Cash Rewards), the other I’d like to close (Capital One Quicksilver) – but haven’t because it’s so darn old (relative to my other cards).

I opened Amex Gold card in 2005, but they closed it on me in 2007 when I hit financial hard times. Although I had never missed a payment to Amex and had never been late, they didn’t like what they saw on my reports and closed the account.

I didn’t even try to add more accounts until 2011. I started small with a Victoria’s Secret card. It’s still open, but I haven’t used it in about 2 years. If they close it, so be it. I’ll eventually use it again if Comenity doesn’t close it first.

In 2012, USAA send me a pre-approval offer – so I jumped on it. I don’t use that card anymore. Rewards on my other cards outshine it. I will close it when my reports are clean (unless they beat me to it).

2013 was a busy year for me. My USAA approval gave me confidence and my personal financial situation had improved significantly. I added:

Discover IT

NFCU Flagship

SECU Visa

Kohl’s

Lord & Taylor (closed in 2015)

Fuel Rewards (closed in 2015

Macy’s

Target

Loft

JCPenney’s

Lowes

Walmart

Chase CSP (pc’ed to CSR last year)

Banana Republic

Chase Marriott

In 2014, I picked up:

AMEX Hilton Surpass (backdated to 2005)

AMEX SPG (backdated to 2005)

Chase Freedom

Chase Southwest (closed last year when I pc’ed CSP to CSR; limit redistributed between remaining Chase cards)

Barclay’s US Airways (now AA Aviator)

BJ’s

NFCU CashRewards

I slowed slightly in 2015:

Added AMEX to Macy’s store card

Citi Thank You Premier

Barclay’s Sallie Mae (closed when converted to Commence)

AMEX PRG

Home Depot

I didn’t open any new cards in 2016. And have only added Chase Amazon so far this year – only because Sallie Mae is gone.

I don’t plan to make any sweeping changes or close much until my reports are clean. I do, however, use most of my cards regularly. The few that don’t get used are highlighted in blue font. Backdating on the AMEX cards are helping my AAOA. I’ll probably hold those for as long as I can make them useful. I am waiting to see how the Marriott/SPG merger shakes out before I do anything with those cards.

I like being able to just pay my statement balance by the due date without worrying about utilization or how many cards are reporting a balance. Even when I pare down, I’ll probably still have a bunch of cards. At the moment, it works for me.

[Gmood1]

---

@JAverageJoesCredit wrote:
Thats true. Other day i had to get some car maintenance done and all i could think of is with what card can i get the most bang for my buck lol. One reason im starting to favor reward cards is just that at least you get back something for your spend versus not. So whether its 5 or 10 bucks back its better than 0 so... i decided to put it on my Navy card for though it wasnt my best return like my Dc, i still get back 1.5 plus i really want to establish myself with Navy in hopes that i can get one of those epic increases

---

You'll get them with Navy whether you spend or not.

They're very generous with limits most of the time.

Out of the last 15 or 16 hotel stays I've had in the last two years. I've paid for two of those nights out of pocket. You can't do stuff like that using any CC or debit card. You must have the right CC for those hotels. That's several thousand dollars I didn't have to spend. We had rooms in Orlando/Disney at Hyatt and IHG properties. The total cost was under $200 out of pocket for 5 nights for a family of four. Some of that cost was for parking fees not just the rooms. I spent more money on food then I did on lodging. Lol

[Viva-LV]

23 total, including my Chevron card; no store cards.  AAOA - 1.9.  No AA or cld's, plan on keeping them unless something odd happens (i.e. Citi HHR).  No plans to app for more, just sp cli's when available.  303k in cl's, more than was my goal.  This is one of my favorite hobbies

[Revelate]

I don't have quite enough open to play but close enough for horse shoes and hand grenades heh and hey it's easy to cut and paste.  Since basically I gave a crap about credit which predates my forum registration by a few months; open date isn't precise it's just first of the month for all cards since at least some of the bureaus track it that way anyway.

Card	Open Date	Months Open	Closed / Notes
BOFA New	10/1/11	69
Capital One	12/1/11	67	Closed 4/14
Cashcall loan	12/1/11	67	Closed 7/12, Not on TU
WFDS Auto	12/1/11	67	Closed 8/12
Amex BCE	1/1/12	66	Backdate from 1/13
USAA loan	1/1/12	66	Closed 1/15
DCU Secured	2/1/12	65
DCU Auto	8/1/12	59	Closed 9/14
Amex Zync	9/1/12	58
USAA CC	1/1/13	54
Chase Freedom	1/1/13	54
Walmart	1/1/13	54	Closed 3/16
Fidelity Amex	4/1/14	39
Commerce Sigh	5/1/14	38
USAA loan	5/1/14	38	Closed 6/16
Alliant loan	5/1/14	38
Mortgage	7/1/15	24
Chase CSR	7/1/15	24
Chase IHG	8/1/15	23	Closed 1/17
Penfed PLOC	8/1/15	23
JCB Makurai	8/1/15	23
C1 Quicksilver	8/1/15	23
DCU HELOC	6/1/16	13
Chase FU	6/1/16	13
Discover	6/1/16	13
Citi Costco	6/1/16	13
First Tech	12/1/16	7
Chase Amazon	1/1/17	6