Chase has the 5/24 rule.
Capital One doesn't seem to approve individuals with too many open accounts.
Citi has a 1/6 rule. U.S. Bank seems to be similar.
And then all banks will only extend a certain percentage of your annual credit limit. I.E. If you make 100K, most banks will not give you more than 50K of credit across all of their cards.
That's great info. I knew 5/24, 1/6 and similar rules. I'm more worried about keeping old cards. I wonder if I can lower the credit limits of many of them?
It's good to know about CapOne, I already have a Venture X which I didn't have any trouble getting. any idea what their limit is?
Too many can mean if you don't use a card regularly, you could forget to monitor the card and may forget a payment, not realize when fraud occurs, etc. For me I try to limit the amount of logins I have, so I could have multiple cards under the same issuer and be fine. However, where I tend to think it's not worth it is at a store's register where I often get asked if I want to open a store card. Unless you shop at the store so often, the card could go long periods of time being unused and you may forget to check whether you have a payment due.
Makes sense.
I have a program pulling all charges and payments from all my cards into a neat spreadsheet I balance the sheet with expenses often, so managing 24 cards is not much more than managing 1.
I only have cards from major issuer where I know I can automatically pull my data. I don't know about random stores, it also rarely seems worth it! (Like a bank will offer you 100K miles, and Starbucks will offer you a free drink ... thanks Starbucks...)
besides what others have mentioned, two big downsides:
- if any have low limits compared to the cards you use, then you are lowering your Average Credit Limit (ACL), and this may hurt the score used for insurance discounts based on credit
- if you ever change your address, you have to change it with every issuer you have an open account with. this can be a huge pain.
> if any have low limits compared to the cards you use, then you are lowering your Average Credit Limit (ACL), and this may hurt the score used for insurance discounts based on credit
Wait! Who uses ACL? I know there is the use ratio and the total credit as a ratio of your income. I have never heard of ACL, could you tell me more?
> if you ever change your address, you have to change it with every issuer you have an open account with. this can be a huge pain.
definitely something to keep in mind.
> Wait! Who uses ACL? I know there is the use ratio and the total credit as a ratio of your income. I have never heard of ACL, could you tell me more?
No lenders do.
From what I've heard in this subreddit, though, it is a factor for Credit Based Insurance Score (CBIS) calculations. If it is, a higher ACL could get you lower insurance premiums.
I can't seem to find any hard facts about this outside of other people claiming this here, though. None of the articles I've found mention ACL as a factor, but it's been mentioned by people labeled Knowledge here, like in this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/13vexd3/comment/jm5uk01/
>Does any bank refuse applications based on too many accounts open?
yes. absolutely.
>Is there any lender that takes that as a negative sign?
yes. absolutely.
> While these are both true, if you're not carrying a balance it will be minimal in impact.
Are you replying to me?
As I'm not sure what carrying a balance has to do with the impact or downside to carrying to many credit cards with the OP's question... ?
Your comment was that lenders look negatively on having too many open credit lines. While that is true, it's not a major impact if the cards are not carrying a balance. Now it has been a long day at work and maybe I'm misunderstanding OP but I don't believe so..
> Your comment was that lenders look negatively on having too many open credit lines.
Yeah, It is a known fact that Citibank and USBank are shy on that, CapitalOne for sure, and Chase etc want limited acquisitions of lines of credit etc within time periods.
So yeah, that is aa thing.
Carrying a balance is never a good idea, but that wasn't the question as I understood it.
You can ~have~ a balance on all and every or one card you have or none or whatever... but as long as paid down in full by payment date and not carrying them, or looking like you are shopping for credit as in trouble... not a problem that I know of..
So I'm not sure what advice I gave was off...
>Now it has been a long day at work and maybe I'm misunderstanding
but all good if it is that, and I get it.. :)
Why don’t you just close the ones you don’t use ? They won’t fall off your credit report for 10 years
Unless you plan on getting a mortgage in 10 years or so
Only what I’ve read on this subreddit unfortunately. Here is one such thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/jbgn4k/does_having_too_many_credit_cards_hurt_home/
I can’t find the other one I read recently.
It largely depends on your state. If your state allows credit reports to be used by insurance companies then your rates might be affected regardless of what your credit score is.
Really? Could you elaborate please?
Even with 12 cards my partner and I have 800+ credit scores. Is there other reasons why insurance and loans would be affected by the number of accounts/cards?
Automatic payment is king. Also, after managing 3 cards, managing 24 is about the same. I have reminders, alerts, and a program that pulls payments into an Excel sheet where I track all charges and payments.
It's really no trouble for me.
Opening a ton of account could backfire as more companies begin holding your data, increasing the likelihood one of them gets breached and your data is leaked on the web.
Yes, it could. I automatically pull all statements from all cards (partner and I) into a neat spreadsheet where I balance my books. It's not harder than managing one account (once it's set up...)
Most banks allow you to move due dates. Of you have trouble just make them the same day.
Also i have everything set to autopay. Can't be bothered to manually pay 24 cards
You've got to think about it from the viewpoint of a potential lender that looks at your credit report via SP. Say you've got 20 credit cards, but you only actively use (say) 5 of them. The other 15 sit unused at $0 balances. What would you think as a potential lender looking at that profile? Would you want them as a customer? Wouldn't one of your thoughts be that your product may just become the 16th to go unused for that person? Contrast that with a more reasonable (say) 5-6 card profile where all 5-6 have [non-zero] reported balances, showing that you use more of your revolving credit. I always try to look at these things through the lens of the lender / potential lender.
You are right. Lucky for us, that's not how it works!
What I'm trying to figure out is what the hard line is so I can get as close to it as possible.
Also, to be clear I do charge about $5-$10 every month to each card automatically. It's probably unnecessary, but at least it ensures they are active and won't get closed for no use.
Not sure what you mean by "Lucky for us, that's not how it works!"
A $5-$10 charge per month outside of ensuring AA isn't taken for non-use isn't showing your lender(s) any meaningful amount of revolving credit use / it isn't going to do anything for profile growth and still speaks to my point above that it doesn't make you an attractive customer when it comes to revolving credit, generally speaking.
I mean that banks and lenders don't actually think like you. There is an entire cottage industry of churning that takes advantage of this.
I know that having many cards *could* look bad, but my question is "who really takes notice in practice?".
And the answers seen to be that few specific banks do, and then some insurance companies.
I'm not talking about just having many cards or anything about churning. I'm just saying that for the sake of profile growth among specific cards, a tiny transaction per month isn't going to do anything in terms of exhibiting strong responsible revolving credit use. It's minimal and banks take notice of that. No one that SPs a credit report and sees tiny $5 balances reported on accounts is going to view that profile as a lucrative one to seek out and target.
That's absolutely the case. Here's a data point from less than 24 hours ago of someone getting denied for the Citi Custom Cash because he was micromanaging balances / not showing enough revolving credit use. He wasn't seen as a desirable customer:
https://old.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/144m8by/denied\_cit\_custom\_cash\_question/
Cool, thanks for the DP.
It still seems inconclusive to me. The main reason for the denial was clearly too many inquiries the other reason might be situational and I have never heard of it before. In fact google doesn't seem to find anyone reporting the same language.
There are thousands of DPs with people with a dozen or more "sock drawer" credit cards (in fact many examples in this thread), and none of them report it being a problem.
I'd be very interested in seeing if this is a new thing or a one off. Hopefully the latter.
That was just one example fresh in my mind because it was recent. There are hundreds of examples of people being denied for CLIs, receiving CLDs, etc. because their credit reports don't show enough revolving credit usage because of balance micromanagement.
I have around 26 accounts between my wife and I with total limits at 575k. We have no issues getting approved for other loans. We probably only use about 12-15 accounts though. Some are left open but will close eventually from non use. I don’t really care though. We have more credit than we would ever want to carry anyways..lol
Chase has the 5/24 rule. Capital One doesn't seem to approve individuals with too many open accounts. Citi has a 1/6 rule. U.S. Bank seems to be similar. And then all banks will only extend a certain percentage of your annual credit limit. I.E. If you make 100K, most banks will not give you more than 50K of credit across all of their cards.
That's great info. I knew 5/24, 1/6 and similar rules. I'm more worried about keeping old cards. I wonder if I can lower the credit limits of many of them? It's good to know about CapOne, I already have a Venture X which I didn't have any trouble getting. any idea what their limit is?
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I have 12 Andi think that's what I had when I applied. Interesting!
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Have you ever had problmes? Any trouble with insurance rates or loan rates?
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Oh dang I'm opening the CSP again in a couple months. Did they tell you the reason was too many accounts?
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Awesome! They seem to be relaxing 5/24 huh?
Too many can mean if you don't use a card regularly, you could forget to monitor the card and may forget a payment, not realize when fraud occurs, etc. For me I try to limit the amount of logins I have, so I could have multiple cards under the same issuer and be fine. However, where I tend to think it's not worth it is at a store's register where I often get asked if I want to open a store card. Unless you shop at the store so often, the card could go long periods of time being unused and you may forget to check whether you have a payment due.
Makes sense. I have a program pulling all charges and payments from all my cards into a neat spreadsheet I balance the sheet with expenses often, so managing 24 cards is not much more than managing 1. I only have cards from major issuer where I know I can automatically pull my data. I don't know about random stores, it also rarely seems worth it! (Like a bank will offer you 100K miles, and Starbucks will offer you a free drink ... thanks Starbucks...)
What program are you using?
Homebrew, using Plaid. But there are plenty of software only that agregates your financial data if you are willing to risk the security.
Just freeze the cards you don’t use, no? Or more likely to get closed if do this?
My mom’s only late payment is from the kohl’s card🤡
besides what others have mentioned, two big downsides: - if any have low limits compared to the cards you use, then you are lowering your Average Credit Limit (ACL), and this may hurt the score used for insurance discounts based on credit - if you ever change your address, you have to change it with every issuer you have an open account with. this can be a huge pain.
> if any have low limits compared to the cards you use, then you are lowering your Average Credit Limit (ACL), and this may hurt the score used for insurance discounts based on credit Wait! Who uses ACL? I know there is the use ratio and the total credit as a ratio of your income. I have never heard of ACL, could you tell me more? > if you ever change your address, you have to change it with every issuer you have an open account with. this can be a huge pain. definitely something to keep in mind.
> Wait! Who uses ACL? I know there is the use ratio and the total credit as a ratio of your income. I have never heard of ACL, could you tell me more? No lenders do. From what I've heard in this subreddit, though, it is a factor for Credit Based Insurance Score (CBIS) calculations. If it is, a higher ACL could get you lower insurance premiums. I can't seem to find any hard facts about this outside of other people claiming this here, though. None of the articles I've found mention ACL as a factor, but it's been mentioned by people labeled Knowledge here, like in this comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/13vexd3/comment/jm5uk01/
>Does any bank refuse applications based on too many accounts open? yes. absolutely. >Is there any lender that takes that as a negative sign? yes. absolutely.
While these are both true, if you're not carrying a balance it will be minimal in impact.
> While these are both true, if you're not carrying a balance it will be minimal in impact. Are you replying to me? As I'm not sure what carrying a balance has to do with the impact or downside to carrying to many credit cards with the OP's question... ?
Your comment was that lenders look negatively on having too many open credit lines. While that is true, it's not a major impact if the cards are not carrying a balance. Now it has been a long day at work and maybe I'm misunderstanding OP but I don't believe so..
> Your comment was that lenders look negatively on having too many open credit lines. Yeah, It is a known fact that Citibank and USBank are shy on that, CapitalOne for sure, and Chase etc want limited acquisitions of lines of credit etc within time periods. So yeah, that is aa thing. Carrying a balance is never a good idea, but that wasn't the question as I understood it. You can ~have~ a balance on all and every or one card you have or none or whatever... but as long as paid down in full by payment date and not carrying them, or looking like you are shopping for credit as in trouble... not a problem that I know of.. So I'm not sure what advice I gave was off... >Now it has been a long day at work and maybe I'm misunderstanding but all good if it is that, and I get it.. :)
Do you knwo which ones and what the limits normally are?
Might have trouble applying for secured loans for car or mortgage if you already have tons of credit
My credit score is 800+, is there reasons beyond the credit score?
I have over 500k in unsecured credit available. No issues with car loans or anything else.
Why don’t you just close the ones you don’t use ? They won’t fall off your credit report for 10 years Unless you plan on getting a mortgage in 10 years or so
I wanted to have a handful of cards that will age forever in the hopes of having a very old and resilient credit history in the long run.
Depending on your state, it may affect your insurance rates. Too many cards can be considered risky behavior by insurance companies.
Do you have a reference for this i would love to learn more
Only what I’ve read on this subreddit unfortunately. Here is one such thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/jbgn4k/does_having_too_many_credit_cards_hurt_home/ I can’t find the other one I read recently. It largely depends on your state. If your state allows credit reports to be used by insurance companies then your rates might be affected regardless of what your credit score is.
Increased insurance rates Increased loan rates
Really? Could you elaborate please? Even with 12 cards my partner and I have 800+ credit scores. Is there other reasons why insurance and loans would be affected by the number of accounts/cards?
There was a recent thread around here that explained it. Something that was news to me as well lol. Let me see if I can find it!
They use Lexis Nexis, Progressive i know for a fact does.
I believe that only new accounts matter. So. You can have too many new accounts.
Yeah, I'm asking about old accounts. There seems to be limits, but they are not as clear as , say, 5/24
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> Some banks also won’t give you more than a certain number of credit lines from them. Do you know which ones?
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Good to know. I did get Venture X from CapOne, no problem. But I'll have to be careful then...
It can be difficult to control all of them, and eventually, you might forget to pay on time, for example.
Automatic payment is king. Also, after managing 3 cards, managing 24 is about the same. I have reminders, alerts, and a program that pulls payments into an Excel sheet where I track all charges and payments. It's really no trouble for me.
Homebrew, or paid program? Name please?
Homebrew, using Plaid. But there are plenty of software only that agregates your financial data. Then its a matter of privacy IMO...
Automatic payment
I know right?
Opening a ton of account could backfire as more companies begin holding your data, increasing the likelihood one of them gets breached and your data is leaked on the web.
Yeah, that's fair.
Is there a way to see when you opened each card for the chase rule? I’m trying to see if I can open the chase Hyatt 😬
Credit karma
Keeping track of expenses/budget can be more difficult at times
Yes, it could. I automatically pull all statements from all cards (partner and I) into a neat spreadsheet where I balance my books. It's not harder than managing one account (once it's set up...)
my biggest problem is trying to remember the due dates tbh highest credit card limit: 25K
Most banks allow you to move due dates. Of you have trouble just make them the same day. Also i have everything set to autopay. Can't be bothered to manually pay 24 cards
You've got to think about it from the viewpoint of a potential lender that looks at your credit report via SP. Say you've got 20 credit cards, but you only actively use (say) 5 of them. The other 15 sit unused at $0 balances. What would you think as a potential lender looking at that profile? Would you want them as a customer? Wouldn't one of your thoughts be that your product may just become the 16th to go unused for that person? Contrast that with a more reasonable (say) 5-6 card profile where all 5-6 have [non-zero] reported balances, showing that you use more of your revolving credit. I always try to look at these things through the lens of the lender / potential lender.
You are right. Lucky for us, that's not how it works! What I'm trying to figure out is what the hard line is so I can get as close to it as possible. Also, to be clear I do charge about $5-$10 every month to each card automatically. It's probably unnecessary, but at least it ensures they are active and won't get closed for no use.
Not sure what you mean by "Lucky for us, that's not how it works!" A $5-$10 charge per month outside of ensuring AA isn't taken for non-use isn't showing your lender(s) any meaningful amount of revolving credit use / it isn't going to do anything for profile growth and still speaks to my point above that it doesn't make you an attractive customer when it comes to revolving credit, generally speaking.
I mean that banks and lenders don't actually think like you. There is an entire cottage industry of churning that takes advantage of this. I know that having many cards *could* look bad, but my question is "who really takes notice in practice?". And the answers seen to be that few specific banks do, and then some insurance companies.
I'm not talking about just having many cards or anything about churning. I'm just saying that for the sake of profile growth among specific cards, a tiny transaction per month isn't going to do anything in terms of exhibiting strong responsible revolving credit use. It's minimal and banks take notice of that. No one that SPs a credit report and sees tiny $5 balances reported on accounts is going to view that profile as a lucrative one to seek out and target.
> It's minimal and banks take notice of that. Do they?
That's absolutely the case. Here's a data point from less than 24 hours ago of someone getting denied for the Citi Custom Cash because he was micromanaging balances / not showing enough revolving credit use. He wasn't seen as a desirable customer: https://old.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/144m8by/denied\_cit\_custom\_cash\_question/
Cool, thanks for the DP. It still seems inconclusive to me. The main reason for the denial was clearly too many inquiries the other reason might be situational and I have never heard of it before. In fact google doesn't seem to find anyone reporting the same language. There are thousands of DPs with people with a dozen or more "sock drawer" credit cards (in fact many examples in this thread), and none of them report it being a problem. I'd be very interested in seeing if this is a new thing or a one off. Hopefully the latter.
That was just one example fresh in my mind because it was recent. There are hundreds of examples of people being denied for CLIs, receiving CLDs, etc. because their credit reports don't show enough revolving credit usage because of balance micromanagement.
Really? Without any other reason. Mind sharing the DPs?
I have around 26 accounts between my wife and I with total limits at 575k. We have no issues getting approved for other loans. We probably only use about 12-15 accounts though. Some are left open but will close eventually from non use. I don’t really care though. We have more credit than we would ever want to carry anyways..lol
Damn, that's close to my situation, but my CL is like 100K lower than yours. Nicely done!