Am I crazy? (I want to reduce my CC count)

[NYC_Fella]

I'm going aginst the grain here, but I feel like I have way too many cards and I want to thin the herd.

Below you can see the cards I currently have. Here are the ones I'd like to get rid of:

Bob's Furniture $5K (no need now for a store card)

Venmo $20K (Synchrony - applied for in a moment of weakness)

PayPal $12K (Same as above)

Apple $9.25K (been pretty useless)

Discover $12K (same as above)

PenFed $7.5K (never really have occasion to use it)

I don't really care about cash back and am mostly focused on travel rewards.

This would leave me with:

Amex Platinum NPSL POT $15K

Amex BCP $15K

Amex BBP $25K

Barclays Red Aviator $20K

WF Active Cash $25K

BofA Travel Rewards $9.5K

which are the only cards I actually use.

My utilization is usually around 1% so that may go up to 2%.

Thoughts? Any downside?

[wingennis]

The only downsides I can think of relate to closing your oldest card and total utilization.  In a few years that can have a big impact depending on how long you had it and how old your other accounts are.  You've already thought about your total utilization.  You may receive advice that there is no good reason to close a card with no-annual fee and I understant that perspective.  In the event that you suddenly stop travelling or the travel cards you have no longer work for you having a back up cash back card might not be the worst thing.  All of that being said, I'm like you.  I want to manage fewer cards, stop maximizing every dollar, and just get on with life.  For me the card frenzy is over.

[redpat]

Not crazy.  

Close them and you will do more with less cards.  Many worry about closing cards but you may feel better once they are gone, use the ones you like and stick to an reward program you like.

I went from having 12 cards down to 4 personal cards. 

Soooo, much easier.

Good luck!

[ACN323]

I'm also feeling the same as you all. I'd really like get rid of about 4, but we're in that limbo phase of hoping to buy a house in the near future and I don't want to mess with my scores now that they are semi decent.

I've closed two Amex charge cards in the past and had little adverse reaction with those as they were not revolving, but I removed myself from as an AU on my DH's card and it dropped my scores about 15-20 points. Granted that's when I still did have an old baddie on there as well, but I have such anxiety about messing with my scores. I feel like if I was all set with a mortgage etc, I'd do a major sweep of my current line up and keep my CSP, Disco because it's the oldest and Amex BCE. I hate having to manage so many cards to keep them active when I really only use one! 

[odd_dog]

There is nothing wrong with downsizing and getting rid of cards you do not need. I understand the argument about keeping cards with no annual fee, but that opens you up to identity theft and quite honestly if you want to forget about these cards it's tough not to keep looking at them to make sure no one has charged anything on your number. Only thing that really matters is your utilization and quite honestly if you're not apping or applying for a mortgage who cares about you utilization, "with in reason" you're not trying to keep your score pristine for apping. If at some point in the future you want to change to money rewards, apply for them when you want to switch. 

[Anonymous]

Unscientific, but I think there has been a slight shift since I first joined (under a different name).  Then the mantra was "grow", increasing TCL by both CLI on existing cards and getting new cards.   While that is still very common (including closing useful cards because they don't grow by those taking it too seriously)   we are certainly seeing many more posts about the benefits of downsizing.    I've always agreed with closing cards that are no longer useful, so go ahead with streamlining.    Sometimes there may be later regret (usually when you discover that a card you closed could potentially now be PCd to a newly issued great card) but that's rare and it's minor!

[DJRobbieD]

I just went through a similar downsizing exercise myself at the beginning of the month, closing 4 cards at a loss of $50.4K TCL (Elan MCP $10K, CIC $12K, CCC $13.4K, Alliant $15K).  All were no AF cards and 3 of them opened less than 2 years ago.  I'll probably downsize a bit further to 10 cards or less sometime in 2024, but this was a good first step.  I've lost my appetite for rewards optimization, suppose it was just a phase of mine toward the end of 2021 / beginning of 2022.  

Any further new account activity for me will be focused on growing TCL by getting additional cards at existing lenders that will later get merged while at the same time taking advantage of limited-time SUB offers (e.g. eventually merge my new $25K Amex MBB and existing $50K BCP for a single $75K CL card).

[Kforce]

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@redpat wrote:

Not crazy.  

Close them and you will do more with less cards.  Many worry about closing cards but you may feel better once they are gone, use the ones you like and stick to an reward program you like.

I went from having 12 cards down to 4 personal cards. 

Soooo, much easier.

Good luck!

---

^^^^^ This

I went from twelve down to six.

Use two for all my spend less a few dollars to keep other 4 alive.

Two for backup in-case primary card's become nerfed or extinct (sock drawer).

Two because of age, 25+ years old, (sock drawer).

*

One of the cards that I closed, later could have been PC'd to a nice card.   

As @Anonymous mentioned, that is the risk of closing vs sock drawer if Util is not a concern

However keeping each alive, minimum spend, and checking each for fraud every month has loss of you time attached to each card.

Have been thinking about closing the back-up set of cards.

Having a total of 4 sounds really nice.

Know as soon as I close them, my main set will get nerfed.   

Will feel silly needing to get new cards just like the two I closed.   

[SouthJamaica]

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@NYC_Fella wrote:

I'm going aginst the grain here, but I feel like I have way too many cards and I want to thin the herd.

Below you can see the cards I currently have. Here are the ones I'd like to get rid of:

Bob's Furniture $5K (no need now for a store card)

Venmo $20K (Synchrony - applied for in a moment of weakness)

PayPal $12K (Same as above)

Apple $9.25K (been pretty useless)

Discover $12K (same as above)

PenFed $7.5K (never really have occasion to use it)

I don't really care about cash back and am mostly focused on travel rewards.

This would leave me with:

Amex Platinum NPSL POT $15K

Amex BCP $15K

Amex BBP $25K

Barclays Red Aviator $20K

WF Active Cash $25K

BofA Travel Rewards $9.5K

which are the only cards I actually use.

My utilization is usually around 1% so that may go up to 2%.

Thoughts? Any downside?

---

Getting rid of the Synchrony card can never be wrong.

As to the rest it's a totally personal thing. From a scoring perspective, it's always good to have a bunch of zero balance cards in the mix, and the higher the total credit limit the lower the utilization. But if you don't like managing that many cards, then by all means downsize.

[Bockrocker]

Me personally I would hold on to the Discover and maybe the PayPal.  Discover because it's a separate lender/network and PayPal because 3% on PayPal purchases is pretty competitive.  But if you really don't use them...