Is there such a thing as too many cards?

[mgs2010]

Long story short - I have legit about 50 credit cards with limits from 300 on the low (Target - never ever a CLI) to NFCU $16,100 limit. Total limits among all lines is roughly 180k. Aside from juggling to make sure each card gets used before 12 months has passed, is there anything against this? My file is very, very lengthy between all of these open cards and cards from my past, auto loans, student loans, mortgage, etc. Sometimes I just want to simplify some and close some cards. Any tips?

[creditguy]

Sure there is such a thing as too much credit. You can find threads where people have faced AA for too much exposure or available credit. It's a YMMV thing though. More than likely you won't face that unless your getting manual reviews for new credit or CLI's. Of course your income plays a part as well. I firmly believe in quality of credit compared to quantity of credit. I have no problem closing cards that I no longer need or use. Sure we could all use a little utilization padding but at what cost? If your spending time tracking cards to make sure you use them, then it's probably time to pare back. I'd start by eliminating anything with a toy limit, it's just dead wood, especially if the card doesn't grow i.e. Target.

[Anonymous]

I would say 50 is too much. When it takes a reem of paper to print your credit report... there might be a problem. :-)

[redpat]

Dump'em!  About 40 or so.

[MrsCHX]

I think 50 is a lot by any standards and that you HAVE to have some overlap in there as far as the usefulness of cards. 

[MyLoFICO]

Wow, that is a lot. I have 24 and am working to close about 7-9 of those.

[Anonymous]

There is certainly a limit for too many cards, but I believe that varies by person. Some can juggle 20+ cards with no problem whereas others have problems using just 3. If you feel the amount of cards you have is too much certainly close some. I would nix those that 1)you have to force yourself to use 2) newest accounts 3) tiny limits that won't grow (not necessarily in that order). Also, as another poster mentioned, having too much available credit can actually be a bad thing if your income cannot support that POTENTIAL level of spending. A few days ago someone's BOA card got closed with a perfect record simply because they asked for a CLI increase and BOA felt they were at risk because the person had too much available credit from other lenders.

[takeshi74]

Definitely take a look at the many prior discussions on number of cards as this is an extremely common topic.

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@mgs2010 wrote:

Sometimes I just want to simplify some and close some cards. Any tips?

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Do what works for you.  If X is too many for you to manage then close some.

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@mgs2010 wrote:

Long story short - I have legit about 50 credit cards with limits from 300 on the low (Target - never ever a CLI) to NFCU $16,100 limit. Total limits among all lines is roughly 180k.

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A $300 limit indicates concern with your credit profile.  If you have 50 cards totalling $180K it sounds like you have a lot of low limit cards which also indicate concerns.  The concern isn't really about number of cards but about your your credit profile.

[Anonymous]

I have 7 cards which is 3 too many for me so I would say yes.  You can easily reach a point where you have a lot of cards that are essentially useless or outclassed by other rewards cards. 

[Anonymous]

I'm using 3 right now with 2 in SD and even that seems like too much work for me... 50 cards looks like a full time job honestly... I don't know what I'd do with that many... there are some other cards that I was looking at but in all honesty, I don't know if I want to deal with even 2 more... as someone mentioned, "too many" seems like an individual thing... but 50 seems like way too many no matter who you are...