Help decide what to keep/close!!!

[Anonymous]

Hi all!! I'm fairly new to credit but think I've done pretty good the last 2 years..... I've went from hell no's to a ton of approvals. I believe I'm now up to 13-14 cards and I'm not sure if I need them all. In my head banks/cards don't want to see someone have a million cards with low limits, but I don't fully understand credit yet. These forums have helped me tremendously. I've tried to put them in my signature but I keep messing it up. Im not sure to list what I have for opinions or not. Can you all give insights on what's best or how to navigate this? I feel like I don't need 2 Amazon cards but I only got the first because I thought I would never be approved by chase..... I cold append and just got it😕. All these HP will take forever to fall off lol. I've had extreme success this month alone with like 6 cards... I know I need to chill big time. 

[Anonymous]

I think u shoul decide it by yourself. Only you know which cards you use more often. 

If you don`t know it for sure, you can just see the statistics in your banks online. Cause, I think, the more cards you have, the bigger is risk to be attacked by skammers.

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

You should start by listing all the cards with date opened. Also, what are your biggest spending categories?

[Hoben02]

I use credit cards to get rewards for travel. I organize my cards thru the app CardPointers it tells me what to use for what categories to maximize rewards try that to get an idea 

[greatscott85]

@Anonymous  You could always just list them out via text entry in your signature, instead of getting "fancy" with images. I think we could probably help you if we knew what you had with limits/apr (perhaps you PIF?) and opened date.

[RSX]

without seeing the list = hard to say

and if you just got 6 in this past month - STOP apping for at least 12 months

given the one detail on Amazon cards, i would easily say KEEP the Chase Amazon and close the other one, which i am guessing is the Synchrony one

[Anonymous]

I have them listed now in photos. 

[NRB525]

OP it looks like you have 5 Capital One cards. One might be your oldest, hopefully with no Annual Fee. There are probably some low limits in there, and perhaps no rewards, or same rewards rate? I would not suggest acting too quickly, but a low limit Capital One card with Annual Fee that is not your oldest, or not older by years, would be the first to close. 

The rest of the cards are not out of line for building credit. Each card does require monitoring to make sure you don't miss any payments, but many of us handle this many and more cards. The advice to stop applying for a year is good. Those INQ will fade for scoring purposes in a year, and aging of the accounts will also help.  

[BearsCubsOtters]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi all!! I'm fairly new to credit but think I've done pretty good the last 2 years..... I've went from hell no's to a ton of approvals. I believe I'm now up to 13-14 cards and I'm not sure if I need them all. In my head banks/cards don't want to see someone have a million cards with low limits, but I don't fully understand credit yet. These forums have helped me tremendously. I've tried to put them in my signature but I keep messing it up. Im not sure to list what I have for opinions or not. Can you all give insights on what's best or how to navigate this? I feel like I don't need 2 Amazon cards but I only got the first because I thought I would never be approved by chase..... I cold append and just got it😕. All these HP will take forever to fall off lol. I've had extreme success this month alone with like 6 cards... I know I need to chill big time. 

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It looks like you have 12 cards. And from what you have written here, it seems you are more interested in fine-tuning your credit than you are with overall rewards. 

There are a lot of varibles to consider. One of the most important would be debt-to-credit ratio. Meaning, how much revolving debt are you allowing to report to the credit bureaus each month and what is your total overall reporting credit limits.  

This is important because you never want your credit cards to report balances of 30% or more of your overall credit lines. 

Don't worry too much about card age when making your decision to close....even when closed they assist with the average age of account and they will report up to 10 years which allows other accounts to age. 

You will have to decide for yourself which to keep and close based on the above. If you are in a place right now where, with all those cards in your signature you only have, lets say $8,000 total credit, you may want to keep all of them until you can get the Chase Amazon and Citi Double Cash increased. On the other hand, if you could afford to get rid of a few cards that you are not using and you have a good balance of debt vs credit, then I would get rid of a few of the lesser cards and prepare, in time, for new, better cards. 

Simple answer: I'd close: both Credit One cards, Childrens Place, Victoria's Secret and the Synch Amazon card. 

And as others have said, maybe gardening (not apping for new credit) for about a year would do wonders for your credit and you may at that time obtain higher limit cards with better rewards. 

[Anonymalous]

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@NRB525 wrote:

OP it looks like you have 5 Capital One cards. One might be your oldest, hopefully with no Annual Fee. There are probably some low limits in there, and perhaps no rewards, or same rewards rate? I would not suggest acting too quickly, but a low limit Capital One card with Annual Fee that is not your oldest, or not older by years, would be the first to close. 

The rest of the cards are not out of line for building credit. Each card does require monitoring to make sure you don't miss any payments, but many of us handle this many and more cards. The advice to stop applying for a year is good. Those INQ will fade for scoring purposes in a year, and aging of the accounts will also help.  

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Sounds like you mistook the 2 Credit One cards for Capital One cards. Their deceptive trademark and trade dress worked! But more seriously, Credit One is a subprime bank and is notorious for nickel and diming, so those two cards are good candidates for the chopping block, especially if they have annual fees. But OP hasn't provided any detail on age/credit limits/annual fees, and it's often better to just sock drawer cards without annual fees.