Is it bad to have multiple credit cards?

Question

I have 4 credit cards that I use occasionally but pay off the balance every month for the most part.

Recently I've been suckered into getting store credit cards (Macy's, Kohl's, etc) because they offer a discount when you sign up.

I'm curious if it's bad to have too many credit cards, even if I keep all of the balances paid in full and under control?

Answer 1

According to Clark Howard. The best mix is to have at least two reward cards for no other reason than rewards, but you actually should have more as far as credit score goes.

30% of your credit score is based on how much of your credit that you use.

I had only 17k in credit. I usually spend 6k a month and pay it off every month. I went to 4 credit cards got the total line up to over 40k and because my usage went down to about 12% of total credit, my credit score went up about 40 points to mid 700's after two months

Long story short the more credit cards you have the better for your credit score. You should use each one twice a year to keep them active. (Not relevant for a store credit card, you don't want to buy something from macy's for the sake of keeping the card active)

Answer 2

More card doesn't necessarily mean better but having only one or two card is not great either. It depends on your monthly debt-to-credit ratio. Most sources will tell you that it's highly recommended that you have below 30% of debt to the total amount of credit you have. For example, if all your credit cards combine adds up to $10,000 in available credit. It's frowned upon if you accrue more an $3,000 in debt every month without paying it off. Keep in mind still that a lot of things account in your FICO credit score. The important thing is to keep ALL your balances low and in control.

It's more beneficial to get bank reward cards (airline mileage, points rewards, or cash back) then to get store credit cards even with the "discount". I've listed some pros and cons below. For the most part, most financial sites will tell you that store cards are not very beneficial to have. However, if you are already approved for them, just hang on to those cards. There is no point in closing them if you already went through the hard credit pull and got approved for it. That is unless you get charged an annual fee. I still recommend using the bank cards over the store cards though.

Pros to Bank Rewards Cards:

• Use it anywhere.
• Easier to rack up rewards. Some banks cards offer up to 5% cash back on your purchases. Some also have bonus rewards for online shopping through them. Some cards such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred would allow points to points transfer to many airlines for travel rewards.
• Can be used anywhere that card (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover, etc.) is accepted.

Cons to Bank Rewards Cards:

• Usually requires good to excellent credit to sign up.

Pros to Store Credit Cards:

• Discounts at initial signing up.
• Some store credit cards have in-store points rewards system that will give you purchase discount (ie. 10% off your next purchase) or store credit (ie. Nordstrom $20 Notes)

Cons to Store Credit Cards:

• Not all store credit cards will offer a card to be used outside of the store franchise itself. (ie. Express Credit Card can only be used at Express stores) Some store will offer more than one option of store credit cards. Take Nordstrom for example. There is a credit card that can be used only at Nordstrom stores, "Nordstrom Credit Card." Nordstrom also offer the "Nordstrom Visa Credit Card" which can be used anywhere they accept Visa cards. Most store credit cards are like the latter.
• Discounts is often only offered during sign-up. After that, any discounts received are far in between purchases or there's limitations.

Answer 3

No. From the perspective of the credit card issuer, multiple open lines of credit with a history of on-time payments and low balances is more evidence that you can use your credit responsibly. Signing up for a new card will temporarily ding you a few points (typically 3-5) since it results in a hard inquiry of your credit report. However, in a few months your score will actually improve as the average age of accounts and total number of accounts increases (assuming you make on-time payments and keep your balances reasonable). Since you have more available credit, your credit utilization ratio will also improve, assuming your spending habits do not change.

Should you ever close a card?

I would only close a card if it had an annual fee that I did not want to pay, and even then I would try to convert it to a card from the same bank that does not carry a fee in order to maintain the average age of my accounts. Cards with annual fees typically have a no-fee counterpart that you can downgrade to. Closing a card in good standing rarely helps you and almost always hurts you, though not much.

You could potentially get into a situation where you want a new card but your total credit limit exceeds your income, making banks leery of extending you additional credit. In this case I would suggest lowering the credit limit of one or more cards to make room for more credit. This could hurt your credit utilization ratio but will preserve the average age of accounts.