How much to spend to keep a credit card active?

[Anonymous]

How much to spend to keep a credit card active? Is any little amount ok?

What would be the minimum of amout to put on a CC to keep it active. I eared it require a purchase every 6 months.

[LakeLife]

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@Anonymous wrote:

How much to spend to keep a credit card active? Is any little amount ok?

What would be the minimum of amout to put on a CC to keep it active. I eared it require a purchase every 6 months.

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This is completely dependant upon the credit card issuer.  There is no one answer to this question.  

[AZ-Jeff]

From what I remember reading on the boards; the amount isn't important. But after six months the account will report inactive to the CRA. Some people spend $5 to fund an Amazon gift card. What I'm not sure is if the amount has to report or if you can spend $5 and pay $5 before the statement generates. Some credit card companies will warn you that if you don't use the card, they will close it, others will just close it without letting you know. But if it's a card you don't necessarily care that gets closed or not, there's always the sock drawer.

[Ficoproblems247]

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@Anonymous wrote:

How much to spend to keep a credit card active? Is any little amount ok?

What would be the minimum of amout to put on a CC to keep it active. I eared it require a purchase every 6 months.

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I agree with others as 6 months is a good general rule of thumb for ensuring the issuer will not close it down. The other thing to keep in mind is that if it has a decently high CL there is a chance of a CLD (depending on the issuer and other factors.) If it is either a card you plan to utilize heavily in the future, or one you're counting on for utilization padding you'll want to keep that in mind too.  

[Slabenstein]

As stated above, how long you can go w/o a swipe is very issuer dependent.  I know that from my own case Chase and the soon-to-be-defunct State Farm Bank will notify you after a year of inactivity that you need to use it or loose it.  Discover and Cap1 will, as I understand it, close w/o warning at 6 mo's of inactivity.  In general, though, a small swipe every three to six months should do the trick.

[GmbH]

$3 every six months.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

How much to spend to keep a credit card active? Is any little amount ok?

What would be the minimum of amout to put on a CC to keep it active. I eared it require a purchase every 6 months.

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I have never heard of anyone's account being closed because they spent too little.

As long as the card is actively used, it won't be closed for inactivity.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps, but are they really not going to AA someone that only charges $3 or less every six months? I definitely do not suggest only buying a pcak of gum at a supermarket.

That said it is an intersting topic due to all the factors that are likely taken into account. Banks obviously do not issue CC's with the intention they will be SD'd, nor do they likley expect a person not to carry a balance. They make their Money by people paying interest in addition to swipe fees and i suspect a swipe fee from $6 yearly isn't what they expect. 

Then we have those people who've not spent a dime for two+ years and no AA, so what's different?  If a person has a card that they're worried is not getting used enough then it may a sign that they have too many, and do not spend enough to epread it around?

Most people have all kinds of monthly services that they can charge to their cards, from streaming to memberhships and regular utility bills. 

Those are what you set to auto mati payments while your Daily Drivers gets used for gas, grocery, etc.

[RSX]

^ agreed - first setup a monthly payment on as many as you can - sometimes you have to sacrifice a small amount of rewards to do this

another strategy is to use a CC for one week every couple of months

i have 2 that i carry all the time

every month or so, i grab an unused card and charge everything on it for one week 

[M_Smart007]

I try to use 6 months or less as a rule for activity, sometimes it's $9-11 in fuel,

sometimes $10 added to the Starbucks App.

Once and a while Amazon reloads.

An occasional In & Out burger purchase