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Comment by madpata | Hacker News Reader

How many credit cards do you have? And if it's 3+, then why do you have so many?

Just curious.

I have 4 credit cards, plus two visa debit cards.

I have Amex because I trust them most to be on _my_ side instead of the merchants side by default. It's not accepted everywhere though. I use this preferentially anywhere its accepted that seems even the slightest bit sketchy.

I have both a Visa and a MasterCard - each from different banks, because I've been caught out when one bank's network is down and I couldn't pay for stuff or withdraw cash while travelling. I've never experienced a failure of ether Visa or Mastercards backends, but when I decided I needed a second source of credit/debit card at a seperate bank, I figured I may as well make sure I have one of each.

I have debit cards because they're pretty much an automatic part of having an account and a credit card, and also because I keep the credit limits on my cards low intentionally, and can use a debit card or online banking savings account with a much higher daily limit for large purchases.

I have one extra "single purpose" Visa card with a high credit limit and that gets used exclusively for my Apple/Google/AWS/Linode/DigitalOcean accounts. This is for peace of mind that my AppStore/GooglePlay accounts and my hosting accounts will _always_ charge successfully - the credit limit is over 10 times my total monthly spend over those accounts, I could conceivably vanish for a whole year and those would still all get automatically paid.

Definitely 3+

I grab a new one every couple of years when I see one with advantageous terms. I typically only use a couple of them at a time, but I keep the old ones around because: why not? Having more available credit is only a good thing.

>I keep the old ones around because: why not? Having more available credit is only a good thing.

Also because closing accounts can negatively impact your score (by reducing your average age of accounts)

I do have heard the view that it is better not to have more than 1 or 2 credit cards, because it is likely to reduce ones credit ratings, and also to avoid the extra card related expenses and charges.

> I do have heard the view that it is better not to have more than 1 or 2 credit cards, because it is likely to reduce ones credit ratings

This is, weirdly, backwards. Your credit rating is improved by having lots of available credit (i.e. lots of credit cards), which keeps your utilization percentage low, and by having a very high number of years on your oldest credit accounts.

> and also to avoid the extra card related expenses and charges.

Many cards have no fees.

Fun story - i still have the first credit account I got when I first went to college (originally cosigned by my parents with like a $400 monthly limit, eventually became solely my own and with a proper credit limit). Many years later (after getting a much better credit card that became my daily driver) I used that first card a couple of times for whatever reason and completely forgot to pay it off until six months later, when I paid it in full. That account is now still (> 8 years later) restricted with available credit of $0, but remains a favorable part of my credit score by being my oldest available credit line by many years (the non payment dings appear to have dropped off from my credit rating) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[edit: i just checked and that card currently has an available credit of $-0.05 which I guess means I'm giving the bank a $0.05 credit line!?]

Having more credit cards/credit is not a bad thing... closing accounts on the other hand can drop your credit rating because your average age of credit goes down.

Having a high number of applications in a short period of time will slightly decrease one’s credit score. Staying at or below 1-2 per year usually hasn’t swing mine more than a few of points. Even with a high number of inquiries, this factor only accounts for 10% of the most commonly used FICO score.

Debt burden and length of credit history are, together, 45% of someone’s score, and these are both improved by having a lot of old unused credit cards.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_score_in_the_United_S...

If they're in the US, a lot of financially smart and motivated people can play Credit Card games to maximize on their miles / rewards for purchases such as like 3% cash back on some purchases.

I have a friend who's honeymoon was completely paid - first class flights and ~three weeks worth of all inclusive 5 star hotels/resorts - all on points.

His father ran his entire construction company paying everything he could on the highest rewards based credit card available at the time. He apparently put over 12 million through it in two years. (I suspect it was about an order of magnitude lower than 3% cashback on that, but it was still a nice chunk of honeymoon and travel bills paid "for free", or more accurately by the bank and their merchants, and probably at least somewhat passed on to the construction company's customers in prices high enough to cover the credit card rewards scheme...)

Not the person you're replying to, but I have: my main one, one for the railway company that my gym is associated with (needed for that gym membership), one for a theatre membership, one that reduces my bank account's annual fee, a UnionPay card for use in China, one with good foreign exchange rates and one from my previous country.

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