Too many credit cards?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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yeah, that's where I am at right now. I only cary balances on 6 cards (1.9% balance transfers and 0% promo for 12 months on purchases)... but i am constantly logging into several accounts that I am not using and don't plan too.

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Doesn't sound like it would have an effect for you, but do note that FICO does penalize for balances carried on a certain percentage of accounts.  The FICO penalty actually varies between the 3 bureaus for some reason, but if you carry balances on 50% of your credit cards, you are dinged.  I believe some people see FICO drops when 1/3rd of their cards show balances of any amount (even $5).

So if you close cards, make sure you know what number of cards you can show balances on without a FICO ding from too many cards having a balance.

[Kforce]

Yes, In my opinion, 5-7 for cashback, 5-7 for travel, and 5-7 for business.

If you don't have a business or travel 5-7 covers all you need.

( I know this post will get responses from those 30+ card users )

The gain can't be worth managing, finding the correct card, and splitting rewards.

[Anonymous]

5-7 is my goal as well!  And I do travel (but no longer am business-involved).  I think I can get by with 7 cards to maximize rewards, still doing all the math to make sure of it.

30 cards sounds like a monthly heart attack even with monitoring services like Mint to update me.  What do you do with 35 cards when you change banks?  Yeesh, lots of auto pay updating!

[Anonymous]

As I've said before, college kids with no real estate and a used car loan hit 800 ficos all the time, get offered best rewards. You just don't read about those as most of us are "here to work," and those kids don't need us. To hit the 850 sure you need more going on, ask yourself where you are coming from, what you want. You don't need 10 10 year old cards to get the best accounts moving forward.