Is there such a thing as too many cards?

[Realist]

Too many is up to your tolerance and excitment to manage.  It also often depends on where you are in life.  I don't have a hard limit, but I also don't much care because I can't use all of the credit currently extended, so I cycle it to maintain it.  

Back in the early years, average scores offered average credit totals.  Fast forward to today, impeccible scores yield excellent values.  Your only limitation is 5/24'ish, and how quickly you can acquire them, and how excited you are to maintain them.

By mid life or slightly older, I would suspect most people have their financial game going along well.  To me, SUBs and bank welcome offers are hobbies and icing on the cake.  With a P1 and P2, where else are you going to secure 10k+ in free vacations?  Where else are you going to secure $5k or more in free bank bonuses for doing much of nothing at all?  No one wants to go get a second job, but upwards of $15k in your pocket each year or two by using your head, is noticible if used on vacation type purposes.  Everything needs to live within it's own bucket.

How much is too much?

1.  Goal one was acquiring significant credit - in which I won't use.  Achieved.

2.  Goal two was to enhance on it to acquire free vacations via rewards cards.  Significantly achieved, and awaiting cool down.

3.  Goal three was to acquire a minimum of $5k in bank bonuses to do whatever I want with, annually.  Achieved and still going.

No one wants to go out to get a second job, but vacations wrapped up with free $5k annually, it makes I don't care spending pretty compelling.  If you want to take it up a notch, add in a budget and find out how much money you waste monthly.  Use that savings to add to your bank bonuses.  We are plus $6000 annually in budget savings, with $5000 in bank bonuses, along with free vacations.   Over and on top of our financial position that was always there, without doing anything before.  This excludes your day to day paycheck that always has been.

So yeah, these bins that didn't exist before we started, so we're doing some fun stuff.  All it took was shuffling numbers, and shuffling money.  And getting rewarded for it all.  I'm a very financial driven individual, and even today I find managing it all exciting and trivial.  I only shop SUBs today, nothing else.  If it isn't offering free, I'm not interested.   I've acquired too much to not be rewarded by free, meaning if half or 3/4 of my credit entities disappeared, I'm still golden.

It's a hobby.  Take advantage, and responsibily push it to it's limits.  Whether that's five cards, fifty cards, or five hundred cards or more.  

[thebeardedtek]

22 total personal and business cards after a couple new ones hit my report this month. It's a hobby for me. I need to get into bank bonuses. I agree with you 100%. Good luck on future gains. 

[coldfusion]

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@Sixburgh79 wrote:

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@Gunnerboy wrote:

"Enough" or "too many" are personal subjects.  Just my opinion, once you start asking about "too many" (for yourself), that could be your subconscious telling you, more may not be wise..

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Well it's not that, I have many accounts and manage them fine... I just enjoy new cards and I'm simply curious when it comes to how it looks on one's credit file if it's a negative or as long as they're managed if it's a good thing ultimately.  

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It can be a negative in the context of issuers factoring in current number of open cards and TCL as part of the application process and sometimes they do issue denials if they exceed certain thresholds.   That's often attributed to their not wanting to encourage bonus-chasers or not wanting to issue cards they will believe are destined to be sockdrawered from the get-go  but there can be other reasons including a wariness against extending unsecured credit to someone whose current TCL is already several times their current yearly gross income.   The actual thresholds are very much a YMMV but there are a couple of credit unions occasionally mentioned here that data points suggested over the years don't like a TCL more than somewhere in the $200K range,  other members with roughly 20-25 cards have reported denials due to reasons that translate to "you already have enough cards".     This isn't a universal truism by any means but it does happen.

[Sixburgh79]

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@coldfusion wrote:

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@Sixburgh79 wrote:

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@Gunnerboy wrote:

"Enough" or "too many" are personal subjects.  Just my opinion, once you start asking about "too many" (for yourself), that could be your subconscious telling you, more may not be wise..

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Well it's not that, I have many accounts and manage them fine... I just enjoy new cards and I'm simply curious when it comes to how it looks on one's credit file if it's a negative or as long as they're managed if it's a good thing ultimately.  

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It can be a negative in the context of issuers factoring in current number of open cards and TCL as part of the application process and sometimes they do issue denials if they exceed certain thresholds.   That's often attributed to their not wanting to encourage bonus-chasers or not wanting to issue cards they will believe are destined to be sockdrawered from the get-go  but there can be other reasons including a wariness against extending unsecured credit to someone whose current TCL is already several times their current yearly gross income.   The actual thresholds are very much a YMMV but there are a couple of credit unions occasionally mentioned here that data points suggested over the years don't like a TCL more than somewhere in the $200K range,  other members with roughly 20-25 cards have reported denials due to reasons that translate to "you already have enough cards".     This isn't a universal truism by any means but it does happen.

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I think that's probably where I'm at with it, thanks for that. Yea I think in the replies I've seen it's pretty much a ymmv situation,  also learning that to some it's a hobby so to speak and that lines up with how I was feeling, I didn't realize that it's viewed a hobby but now I sorta get why I enjoy it the way I do so mainly that's what I came to learn.

Many great replies here, very helpful 👍

[12njoy]

@Sixburgh79 

That should be the takeaway.  Do what's best for you. Everyone, including me, can speculate but no one knows your expectations or motivation better than you.  Good luck on your future credit goals!

[Sixburgh79]

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@12njoy wrote:

@Sixburgh79 

That should be the takeaway.  Do what's best for you. Everyone, including me, can speculate but no one knows your expectations or motivation better than you.  Good luck on your future credit goals!

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Yea totally! I was just curious about the ramifications with scores when it comes to more cards, it seems like as long as someone can handle them outside of having too many inquires that it's ok to build overall higher available credit. Like I said it's Def got that hobby type vibe when you start to get into getting new ones and cycling around etc. 

[SRT4kid93]

@12njoy @coldfusion 

you both mentioned you have between 70-100 cards. How is that possible? Wouldn't issuers start denying you simply because you have so many cards? After all,  you will never be able to use that many cards on a regular basis I'm sure some of them go unused for months. So how can issuers be sure you will even use their card when you have that many? Assuming you get a sign up bonus for each new card, Sure you may use it for 1-2 months, but then it could be sock drawered for 12 months. 

I have seen people with 15 cards denied for anymore accounts and  the issuer stated the denial reason as "number of open bank cards" and they only had 15

and how do you avoid having cards cancelled for non usage?  

[Rogue46]

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@SRT4kid93 wrote:

@12njoy @coldfusion 

you both mentioned you have between 70-100 cards. How is that possible? Wouldn't issuers start denying you simply because you have so many cards? After all,  you will never be able to use that many cards on a regular basis I'm sure some of them go unused for months. So how can issuers be sure you will even use their card when you have that many? Assuming you get a sign up bonus for each new card, Sure you may use it for 1-2 months, but then it could be sock drawered for 12 months. 

I have seen people with 15 cards denied for anymore accounts and  the issuer stated the denial reason as "number of open bank cards" and they only had 15

and how do you avoid having cards cancelled for non usage?  

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Most MyFico users here generally have a system where you put a small charge on each card every X amount of time insuring it won't get closed. That would stress me out which is why I only have a "modest" 16 cards..

[12njoy]

@SRT4kid93 

I'll answer for myself with the caveat that this works for me and may not be for others.  I don't apply as much as I used to do but when I do sometimes I am denied for too much available credit.  This happened recently with Jovia.  While others may not worry about my available credit.  I recently in the last 3 months opened 3 cards with First Financial Bank and a line of credit totaling $70,000.  No concern about the credit i already had.  So to answer your question it depends on the lender.  I use all my cards over a 3-4 month period.  I'm not going crazy trying to figure out how or when to use cards.  I rarely use cash for anything so if one thinks about the things we buy only a daily basis (i.e. food, gas, merchandise, etc.) using cards isn't an issue over time.   Shucks even if that's going to the carwash and using 3 cards at $2 each for a rinse/soap/wax.  That's 3 cards at minimal spend.  Again this may not work for some but works for me which is really all that matters to me.

[SRT4kid93]

@12njoy 

And they don't reduce your credit limits for barely putting any spend on the vast majority of them?