3 credit cards vs 1

[dunn2500]

so i have 1 card would 3 shoot the score up quicker than 1.....assuming all were handled and paid same way?.......i mean generally speaking

[fatcomic]

Depends.... what is your utilization on the 1 card and what is your plans for the other 2 cards?    How many hard pulls do you have?

If you're doing the All Zereo But One it could help.  However if you're tempted to spend on all 3 and carry a high utilization you're going to see your score drop.  

[Girlzilla88]

@dunn2500     A good 'set' of cards to have is 3....you don't need 7 or 20 etc but I would recommend getting two more just so they can age well together and it can be utilized to help with your score/mix.         If you do have 3 I would recommend keeping your Bank Card/Bank issued card as the one you report a balance to and having the others 0 or below 8.9% so your overall is great for when you want to add specific things to your profile or to help with CLI down the road

[OmarGB9]

For optimal scoring, yes, 3 is better than 1.

3 will allow you to implement AZEO properly, which will help eek out a few more points (10-20 maybe).

[SouthJamaica]

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@dunn2500 wrote:

so i have 1 card would 3 shoot the score up quicker than 1.....assuming all were handled and paid same way?.......i mean generally speaking

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Perhaps. As long as 2 of them report zero balances and 1 reports a small balance.

But the reality is that none of us have any significant experience with just one card, so we would really be guessing.

In the short run you'd be losing points, for the inquiries, for lowering your average age of accounts, and for resetting your age of youngest account.

I would want to have at least 2 or 3 accounts for a completely different reason: the value of not having all of my eggs in one basket.

[Anonymous]

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@dunn2500 wrote:

so i have 1 card would 3 shoot the score up quicker than 1.....assuming all were handled and paid same way?.......i mean generally speaking

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@dunn2500 yes it would. You are under the too few bankcard penalty until you have 3 on Score 8. And I'm going from threads where people have done it. You can search them and find them. 

Not only that, I believe you have to build up a certain minimum level of payment history and you could do that quicker with three revolvers. And it would serve as a nice counterweight for future accounts.

But as SJ says you do have penalty points in the meantime for scorecard reassignment, inquiry etc., but those are all temporary, the increase in score and the counterweight will remain, absent anything affecting them. 

[Anonymous]

It all depends on the individual.  Naturally asking this question on a forum where there's an entire section on credit cards where the majority of the members here are card-happy you're going to receive responses that are pro-cards.  Find an anti-credit forum somewhere and no doubt you'd see the converse.  Me personally, I had a single credit card for about 15 years and at no point at all during that span of time did I even consider another card.  My Fico scores hung out in the 780-800 range for the majority of that time.  Could they have been (say) 790-815 if I had 3 cards instead and implemented AZEO the whole time?  Possibly... but even so it wouldn't have landed me any of my car loans, mortgages etc. at better terms.  I do agree with what SJ said regarding not putting all of your eggs in one basket however, as that one card did suddenly get closed down on me and I had to seek out a new card.  After finding this forum I did of course scoop up a handful of cards and now do slightly prefer multiple over a single... but not by much.

[dunn2500]

strictly for building a credit score...and thanks for answers that is what i thought......so when getting cards do they look at your score or what card you currently have as barometer?.....my score isnt bad and i have auto loan with NAVY but little CC history

fico 9 is around 730 ish all 3

fico 8 is hair under 700 all 3 ( TU being my worst and believe NAVY uses them although they pulled EQ for my auto loan)

and older bankcard scores same as fico 9

do the use bankcard scores or just general fico model scores?

[dunn2500]

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@Anonymous wrote:

It all depends on the individual.  Naturally asking this question on a forum where there's an entire section on credit cards where the majority of the members here are card-happy you're going to receive responses that are pro-cards.  Find an anti-credit forum somewhere and no doubt you'd see the converse.  Me personally, I had a single credit card for about 15 years and at no point at all during that span of time did I even consider another card.  My Fico scores hung out in the 780-800 range for the majority of that time.  Could they have been (say) 790-815 if I had 3 cards instead and implemented AZEO the whole time?  Possibly... but even so it wouldn't have landed me any of my car loans, mortgages etc. at better terms.  I do agree with what SJ said regarding not putting all of your eggs in one basket however, as that one card did suddenly get closed down on me and I had to seek out a new card.  After finding this forum I did of course scoop up a handful of cards and now do slightly prefer multiple over a single... but not by much.

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just looking to speed process up .....plus the card i have right now is crap anyway, but yeah CC arent really my deal just a tool to serve a purpose......i have learned a ton about credit though in last month or so......cant believe this wasnt taught in school....should be mandatory

[Anonymous]

They look at a lot of things and it depends on lender but your scores one of the biggest things they look at. And which score they use as lender dependent. The scoring system is waited heavily towards Revolvers as opposed to loans, so having old credit cards is a tremendous benefit and I dare say a cornerstone for good credit, so it’s good to get some and then let them age, not to continue getting them, but it’s nice to have some in the beginning to act as a counterweight for your future needs.

You can also expect them to look at income, DTI and if it goes to manual review, they may consider what other cards you have, but undoubtedly even the computers will consider the credit limits of your other accounts. There’s many things that they consider, credit seeking behavior etc.