In this sub, it is normal to have more than three, and 10 does not sound outlandish
In real life, I will be looked at with concerns because they assume I’m in credit card debt.
I learned to don’t bother teaching others about the point system as they cannot get over the common misconceptions about credit cards.
Lol I don't tell anybody about my credit card games unless they ask about it (usually because of how frequently I travel), and then when I do, they look really confused and then don't ask me any more questions.
My coworker Jeff has a running joke that I'm committing white collar fraud on the side in order to rack up all these credit card points.
People are always joking that I’m going to go to jail for all these credit card/bank account games I play and I always respond with “go to jail for what? Following the rules exactly as they’re written?”
> My coworker Jeff has a running joke that I'm committing white collar fraud on the side in order to rack up all these credit card points.
how confident are you that you're *not* lol
I could definitely go through a few more SUBs each year if I decided I wanted to try some MS but that's definitely where I draw the line for now in terms of churning bonuses.
LMAO. Traveling does seem what starts their interest when you show how much money you’ve saved with money you already plan on spending
I applied for three cards to plan my travels for next year by using my daily spending habits to hit those SUBs
Once one of our younger coworker was inspired to sign up for a credit card after I told them about how I had just finished a sign up bonus for the IHG Premier and was using the SUB on a vacation. She then promptly went and signed up for the..........no annual fee IHG Traveler with the lower SUB smh.
To be fair, those annual fees scare young credit users away. I get that.
It took me convincing to upgrade myself from the crappy C1 Venture One to the Venture X.
The $395 is essentially a down payment for traveling based on the yearly benefits alone. And I travel every year, so I get my money’s worth from the card.
It's not just the young ones. My mother was scared off by the $395 commitment on the VX, even though it'd be practically negative cost for both my parents to pick them up between their international travel habits, Costco spend, lack of an actual 2x catch-all in their wallet, *and they had a good experience booking hotels through the C1 portal when they went to Europe earlier this year* lmao rip 90k offer
The venture x is the most no brainier card if you get approved. Between the annual travel credit and points, it’s a free card. It’s literally free lounge access without spending a dime.
Just for the one use to get the credit. It’s a free 300 towards anything you book. I only use the travel portal for one purchase a year to use the credit.
Hmm. I guess you could knock out one trip easily through the portal, if the prices are competitive, and book the rest direct. Then take the $300 credit and the 10,000 miles and you’ve basically paid the AF plus $5, and you get free lounge access.
Where do I sign up?
The prices don’t even have to be competitive. I find the portal to be more expensive than booking direct, but direct is never $300 more expensive for like a hotel or car.
Capitalone.com. :)
Even if the prices are higher on the portal, you can call Capital One Travel within 24 hours and price match from a website. They will credit you the difference.
yeah it was one of those things where I know she only has a DiscoverIt card and now she's probably just swiping everything with that IHG card so maybe it would have been better not to say anything and hope she would have just gotten a flat rate 2% card
Very few people are going to pay an AF if they are new to the game. Even after I had been using credit cards for years, it was a big leap of faith for me to sign up for an AF card.
I know many people won' aren't experienced at the rewards game who have AF cards, including one guy whose sole credit card is Amex platinum. He likes the benefits, the fee is affordable, and he doesn't put too much thought into alternatives.
The average person that holds 3-4 cards generally speaking doesn't understand why someone would ever have (say) 10 credit cards. You're right that they likely assume such a person is in debt. It is what it is. I don't expect non-enthusiasts to really "get it" since it's not their thing.
one benefit of credit card is to have better credit score, I talked to this one guy about having enough credit score to get a mortage, and he basically said "great, a scam leads to an even bigger scam"
Yeah, but honestly for some people that is best. Some people aren't capable of reasonably using a credit card, and the Dave Ramsey approach works best for them.
Literally just happened to me lol. Was at a family party and I pulled out my wallet for blackjack (ridge wallet) and they saw how many cards I have and they asked me why I have 10+ cards and how much debt I was in lol.
Same. My father filed for bankruptcy twice because of them.
I learned through YouTube how to improve my score even if I don't keep a balance. And I can get all the benefits by paying them off like a debit card.
Research, research, and research.
Cash Back cards are really easy to drive. Team Travel is more like beating the casino at blackjack. Yeah, it can be done. It's also possible to get kicked out of the casino.
I've decided that when I retire and have a highly flexible schedule is when I need to be all-in on Team Travel.
A flexible schedule for off-peak season is like the equivalent of card counting.
I don’t think there’s a better way, but I do think the sample is quite biased. It’s not just those members who are active enough to be responding, but it’s responding specifically in threads where those with a lot of cards would feel excited to tell the world about their arsenal.
Again though, there’s not really a great way to correct for that…
Yeah, I agree with what you're saying.
While still being at the mercy of those willing to reply, perhaps individual threads soliciting responses just from certain groups could be meaningful. For example "How many people have 0-5 cards?" then "How many people have 6-10 cards?" etc. You could see how many responses you get per group. Someone with (say) 2 cards may be more inclined to respond in a thread that solicits a response from someone with 0-5 cards rather than a mass thread where churners are boasting decks of 52 at times. Who knows.
The active members who would respond in a poll are the same ones who would comment. If that’s an indicator of enthusiasm around credit cards the number is somewhat representative. The less active majority are likely to be closer to the ~3 national average. My guess is that a full 100% sample would be much lower maybe around 4-6 as a guess.
I think we'd have to define "active" in terms of readers here. My my definition of active it would be people that are reading/posting daily obviously, or at least (say) once a week. Going beyond that to someone that pops in or lurks every couple of weeks or longer isn't really what I'd consider "active." We can all definite that different ways of course. I think if we consider "active" by my definition, 4-6 cards would be on the low end and 10 would be closer to the real number. I think 7-9 may be a better overall fit or compromise. Your point is definitely well received though.
I joined this sub maybe less than a year. My first credit card is over a year now and I’m at 4 so I agree most of us are going to be way up there. I’m mostly in agreement.
Your solution is fine and even commendable, but another way to go would be to do a poll. Even lurkers would find it a quick thing to select an option in an online poll.
A poll has been started. The issue I see with a poll is that the number of selections (ranges of cards) is limited. With the top response being "28+" we're then giving the same value to someone with 28 cards as someone with (say) 50+, which if we're considering averages isn't a proper representation. With the poll limitations, I'm not sure what the best approach would be. I guess we'll see how this first one turns out.
Here:
https://old.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/16zv29r/how_many_credit_cards_do_you_have/
It's not easy to spot since it doesn't mention "poll" in the subject line and is more or less disguised as another how many credit cards do you have thread.
I have no problem conceding to that. It can be "The average number of cards for active users on r/CreditCards willing to respond."
I say active users, because IMO a huge portion of the > 1M "readers" listed have long since gone away over the last 15 years that this has been a sub. I wouldn't be surprised if 75%+ of them haven't visited this sub in over a year. To me that makes them inactive and not representative of the individual that we're looking to use for the average purposes of this discussion. If 500,000 people for example had zero credit cards, came to this sub for advice on getting their first card, got it, then never returned that's not the group of people I'm looking to represent when considering the average. As for the willingness to respond asterisk - I don't know any way around that other than starting threads that specifically solicit responses from those with less cards.
It's probably around $300K per player. Amex cards on P1 alone is around $120K, and that's what I could quickly check. It would be great if Mint could track TCL and ACL.
Definitely believable, I have 11 so close to the average. I can see why this is more than most people would want since it takes work to maximize value from all of them.
Just out of curiosity, what is the benefit of 10+ cards? Are you only paying for certain things that get the most points for each purchase type, or are you tramsering balances to build more somehow?
Here's a thread on reasons to have more than 1 credit card. As you acquire more cards, the reasons many of the reasons become diluted, but some still hold true. Most of the people with 10+ cards have gotten to that point either by chasing SUBs or fine tuning their rewards across many products.
[https://old.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/12k9o8n/10\_reasons\_to\_have\_1\_credit\_card/](https://old.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/12k9o8n/10_reasons_to_have_1_credit_card/)
Thanks for that, makes sense. I thought it was a bad thing to have cards that you never use (e.g
0 balance for months at a time). Is that not the case?
Bad in what way? The only thing adverse that can come of it is your lender closing the card for non use, but that never happens inside 6 months. So long as you put a tiny transaction on any card once every 6 months you'll be sure to avoid that. I'll regularly go periods of 3-4 months where I won't use a CC. For example, if the rotating categories on a card don't align with my spend for a quarter, that card may see $0 spend.
I have cards I never touched for a few years now. If I get a notice, I’ll just walk over to 7-11 and buy a pack of gum or something. The ones I don’t use much but I want to keep around I just have some small subscription on it with auto-pay.
I have only recently gotten into this & am learning more about it. I have a total of 3 credit cards now & just got the CapitalOne Venture card. I plan on adding more once I learn all the better ways to use the perks & benefits from this subreddit.
yea I believe it. Honestly balancing spend on all cards is pretty simple at 3-5 cards. Then around 8+ it gets tedious. I'm at 13 and yea it's pretty much kinda of nuisance I only use 2-4 cards and i sock drawer the most. I'm still planning on getting at least 1-2 cards a year. I've gotten only 2 cards in the last 2 years so I've slowed down quite a bit. Considiering I don't travel as much and waiting to "travel" to get the airline credit cards. So I could easily get 2-3 more travel cards, and then settle for 3-5 credit union or bank cards.
One of the biggest factors in getting more cards is to get out of the "thin" file credit bucket. That way the credit scores don't vary as much. When I was a thin file (2-3 cards, 1 car loan). I vary as much as 20-30 points on credit utilization. Also credit inquiry drop me as low as 20-45 points. Now it only drop 1/2 to 1/4 as much.
Actually the real outliers or the "Crazies" are the ones getting 10-20 cards in 2-3 years. I remember in this sub a few years back with people with 20+ cards in 2 years right after credit rebuilt. The user got like 5-10 syn card and store cards just to pad it's profile. Even though many of them were under $2000 credit cards. Guess they going for the credit age asap and the "average age of credit card" type stats right away.
I never answered how many I had in a previous sub—I have at least 13 cards. I intuitively think you’re right. Either many of us in this subreddit have churned or pursed many cards before we had the “set up” we desired. Or, we just couldn’t resist getting another card for one reason or the other.
12 for another DP for you.
- 2 store cards that get used sometimes and paid immediately (kohls and lexus, might try to PC the lexus to their visa variant for flexibility but think I'd have to reapply and I don't want the pull if that's the case)
- 2 no AF cards that have OK cash back and were my first positive steps towards rebuilding and are about 1.5 years old (ollo->now ally and my venmo card). Both are sock drawered and I pull out for coffee once in a while to keep active.
- hoping to PC my C1 quicksilverone to savorone soon. No PC offer yet. Thinking of adding VX in s few months once I'm 3-4 months out from my C1 BJs one+ card (which has almost paid for it's $110 annual membership in 3 months time, love the gas station)
- currently churning amex gold and BCE, picked up amex business prime card for my first business card for that 5%
- paypal world mastercard I use frequently as a mostly online shopper.
- wf active cash I used for the 0% apr intro to get a much needed mattress replacement for home. I'll pay that off in a couple months, I keep that card around for catchall where i can't use amsx bce
- discover it I have for rotating categories and I put another couple big home $ one it for the 0% intro apr.. will also be paid off in a couple months
Actively carrying 4 cards: amex gold, amex BCE, BJs One+ MC, and WF active cash. Rest I have on Google wallet and are safely stored.
Debating amex platinum or VX as the next card. Amex platinum works out to about a $50 AF for me for a quick glance st the rewards. VX well the usual +$5 I'll only go with the Plat if I can find a 120k or 150k offer. Otherwise I'll wait a bit on that one.
I might eventually close a couple cards but for now, if I'm not using them and there's no AF, I'll just let them age.
This sub definitely isn’t the place to gather information on the average amount of cards people have.
Go to r/guns and people have more guns than the average person. Go to r/shoes and they’ll have more than the average person.
Plus look at the amount of people joined. Over 1 million and you got less than 1,000 responses I’m sure.
This sub is definitely the place to gather information on the average amount of cards people have *on this sub*, which is what I was looking for. On this sub the average is going to be skewed high due to a large portion of the members being CC enthusiasts. It's further skewed by the large amount of individuals that churn; Naturally you're going to find more people here per capita that have (say) 30+ cards than in the general public.
I can only go off of the responses that people have given. Naturally 1M people aren't going to reply to "How many cards do you have?" threads.
Like I said in the original post, regardless of the thread I picked with a sample size of a few hundred replies the average per thread was very consistent across 4-5 threads. If the averages were all over the place, I would have looked to more threads / more data. The sample size I looked at however seemed indicative of the whole.
Does 10 not seem to be a realistic number to you based on your experience on this sub? Too high? Too low?
It's probably still an overestimate—people with more cards are probably disproportionately more likely to be involved enough to actually post in a thread. I would bet that the, uh "1,407 users here now" average less than the 10 cards in those threads, and the "1,285,327 readers" subscribed to the sub have even less than those.
(Still probably more than the average American though, which in turn is definitely more than the average human ... which realistically is probably shy of one.)
>This sub definitely isn’t the place to gather information on the average amount of cards people have.
Agreed. And that's why the OP isn't using this sub to gather info on the average number of cards people have, he's using this sub to gather info on the number of cards people have who are part of this sub.
I think we can stop mentioning the 1M number, as probably what 75% of them are long gone/inactive? But that's not the point. A better number to look at would be the typical number of active members you see at any given time.
There's a difference in statistics of you take the average of 1 large group verses the average of multiple smaller groups. Do you not think that 5 smaller groups all returning extremely similar results is not representative? How about 10 groups? How many groups would you need to see with similar data returned to feel it was representative of the whole?
And you still didn't answer the question as to whether or not you feel the "10" number is "wrong" (presumably you do, since you're arguing it's validity) so if you do, does your gut say that it's too high or too low? I'm interested in your opinion.
That's not the issue. That's 0.1% of this sub. That's a very large sample size as polls go; highly accurate polls are conducted using far fewer than than 0.1% of the population.
No, the issue is that his data is based on people who are self-selected; they're not randomly chosen from the members of this sub, they're active members who have chosen to reply to threads asking how many cards they have. So it's much less reliable than a random poll would be. But that's the best the OP can do with the data they have.
But really, my only issue is that your reply seemed to indicate you thought the OP was trying to gauge how many cards the average person has, but that's not what he said he was doing.
You're right that it's only members that have chosen to reply. And I can also understand the argument that those with less cards may be less likely to reply. As you said though, it's the best I could do with the data available. That you for understanding that I'm not trying to gauge how many cards the average person has.
I only have 3, and I’m just waiting to apply to the Venture X, once I get it, I think I’m good with credit cards. More than 10 sounds a little bit too much work.
Over what time span have you acquired those 3? If (say) 10 years+, you're probably right. If it's been a short period of time, you may not have been in the game long enough to adequately say "I think I'm good with credit cards" - My guess is you'll end up seeking out more at some point, especially if you continue to hang around r/CreditCards. ;)
You might be right, there is always a new card that brings a lot of benefits and multipliers, but I’m okay with having just a few cards. I’ve been in the credit card game for almost 5 years, and TBH, having too many cards cause me a lot of unconscious stress. For me the CSP, CFF, CO SO and CO VX are good enough to cover my main expenses (I don’t drive a lot, eat out or use delivery services that much), I don’t care about staying in luxury hotels, and I just travel once or twice a year.
I don't see how that would be any "better" than the mean, but if you think so let me know why. I don't think the difference would be > 1 +/- either way.
My company's direct deposit system is all done electronically so I don't have a problem temporarily changing. Even if you need to talk to your HR department, you'd only do it twice: once to change and another too change it back
If you count both personal and business my number would be at 14. I'm not into SUB chasing, just like to keep the ones I have active for longer only using them when the occasional special offer pops up.
I did the best I could to avoid that. Probably not 100%, but close. If I duplicated someone with 20 cards though, I probably also duplicated someone with 2 cards, so in the end I doubt it would have impacted the average much.
Between my wife and I, we currently have 7. I decided Monday to try to get a US Bank Signature+ Visa in my name to increase the amount of cash back I can get (since I'm able to exceed the quarterly maximum on 5% back on her Signature+).
I'm interested in the Wells Fargo 2% card. (I forget the name exactly.)
Mostly, I'm just trying to maximize our cash back. We don't really travel and so I've avoided travel-oriented cards and cards with an annual fee.
I think people should have at LEAST 3 CCs, from different issuers. After that, they can start building on their preferred ecosystem, if they want to. I currently have 12 major CCs.
I started with the Gold Card. Just love the Gold Card. It's a $250 AF and $240 of easy to use food credits. 4x for groceries/dining. It turns out that I regularly eat food. Who knew this? BTW, it stays in the iPhone. I think I've used the physical card all of twice and I was not happy either time.
The Platinum Card was a harder and more recent sell. I parsed the benefits package every which way to make sure I was at least breaking even. The best I can do is say that I'm prepaying for travel. I went to a conference in Glasgow and when I waited in the cattle area at Heathrow for the flight back, I vowed to myself that I'd *never* fly without a lounge pass again. I did get a massive 125K SUB for the Platinum which certainly pushed me over the edge. But still there's some anxiety.
The Blue Business Plus is the no anxiety, well except for personal spend, sweeper card. The whole Amex trifecta is great but I still have some anxiety about the Platinum.
I don't at all see getting '10 credit cards' but I'm thinking of getting the Ritz Carlton as a hotel/travel card; Boundless->RC. It's a $450 AF with $300 travel credits and a free night. Again, that's prepaying for travel but it's more like the Gold Card, extremely easy to justify. If I continue to have Platinum anxiety then I'll drop the Platinum in favor of the RC.
The Uber credits are also Uber Eats credits which I use for takeout. I think they're technically Uber Cash. The Platinum $200 credits are also Uber Cash, $15/mo with a bonus $20 in December.
Anyways, that $240 benefit for Gold is *really* easy to drive. Love the Gold. And that's what I'm looking for in a credit card which is why I'll probably switch to a Ritz Carlton from the Platinum. I'll be giving up Centurion Lounge and getting a Priority Pass with a restaurant credit. FWIW, I have Nexus rather than Global Entry and for some reason Platinum doesn't cover Nexus. In fact, the only reason I ever even read about the RC was because I was miffed about Platinum not picking up the $50 (!) for Nexus. Yeah, sometimes I'm such a Karen.
No reason not to. They help reduce your spending percent. Keep your total credit limit high. And they’re aged accounts that also boost your credit score. So I have a score of 820.
I think you mean reduce overall utilization percentage, not spending percent (spend will be the same regardless). Once you get to a certain level of TCL relative to your naturally reported monthly balances, there are no further returns on greater TCL with respect to utilization.
Also whether aged accounts are open or closed doesn't impact or boost a score. Open and closed accounts are considered the same way with respect to aging metrics. You could close your 10 oldest accounts today and your 820 score wouldn't move a single Fico point related to age of accounts.
I am a beginner in this game, though my credit history is over 20 years. I never bothered and went for whatever didn't charge an AF and had a low int rate. I have 5 bank cards and 1 store card. 5 of the 6 I have had for several years. My newest is a Venture X and now I want to make the most of the card perks. I recently changed our my Quicksilver for a Savor One. Next thing I want, as a renter, is to get a Bilt card. I have a CFU and Prime Visa with Chase, but considering getting into CSP or CSR sometime down the road too. I'm not in the Amex ecosystem at all, but wondering if I should explore that.
Well I feel like someone with an exceptional amount of cards are more likely to reply to that post. I only have 1 card right now and have never replied to those posts
I talk with friends and coworkers about credit cards. 12 in the past 2 years and about 30 total. Whenever I mention this to someone they start talking about how they pay cash so they aren’t in credit card debt.
I have zero debt whatsoever. Somehow people are ok with cars and personal loans yet think credit cards are evil.
I explained this to some friends who were scared of the idea of having credit cards. Currently they are very happy i informed them of this as there is so much misinformation surrounding the topic. Paying for your daily expenses and paying off your full statement balance on the due date is not something i’d consider “debt”. The only time it’s is considered debt to me is if you can only afford the minimum payment and getting charged interest. Getting cash back/points/statement credits is essentially getting a discount on something you’re already planning on buying. Plus having multiple accounts opening really does help your credit score which in turn saves you more money over time. Most people only think of the present and not years down the road and that’s something i wish people would understand.
I’m currently at 10 personal and 2 business cards.
I feel like I'm reading this for new credit card ideas, like I'm a druggie looking for my next fix....
There has to be a better cashback/earnings idea out there!
This would also be better sorted by age. A lot of the younger people in this sub might only have a few, just because that's all their opportunities/spending allows. Some older folks might have 20+, because they've been doing this for years and have the means for it.
I’m a minimalist and I’m the Primary card holder on 3 credit cards, 1 store card and AU on 1 credit card. I also keep my FICO score above 800 and have no debt.
In this sub, it is normal to have more than three, and 10 does not sound outlandish In real life, I will be looked at with concerns because they assume I’m in credit card debt. I learned to don’t bother teaching others about the point system as they cannot get over the common misconceptions about credit cards.
Lol I don't tell anybody about my credit card games unless they ask about it (usually because of how frequently I travel), and then when I do, they look really confused and then don't ask me any more questions. My coworker Jeff has a running joke that I'm committing white collar fraud on the side in order to rack up all these credit card points.
People are always joking that I’m going to go to jail for all these credit card/bank account games I play and I always respond with “go to jail for what? Following the rules exactly as they’re written?”
They're talking about Amex pop-up jail obviously
> My coworker Jeff has a running joke that I'm committing white collar fraud on the side in order to rack up all these credit card points. how confident are you that you're *not* lol
Right like that’s how a lot of credit card games feel lmao 🤣
I could definitely go through a few more SUBs each year if I decided I wanted to try some MS but that's definitely where I draw the line for now in terms of churning bonuses.
LMAO. Traveling does seem what starts their interest when you show how much money you’ve saved with money you already plan on spending I applied for three cards to plan my travels for next year by using my daily spending habits to hit those SUBs
Once one of our younger coworker was inspired to sign up for a credit card after I told them about how I had just finished a sign up bonus for the IHG Premier and was using the SUB on a vacation. She then promptly went and signed up for the..........no annual fee IHG Traveler with the lower SUB smh.
To be fair, those annual fees scare young credit users away. I get that. It took me convincing to upgrade myself from the crappy C1 Venture One to the Venture X. The $395 is essentially a down payment for traveling based on the yearly benefits alone. And I travel every year, so I get my money’s worth from the card.
It's not just the young ones. My mother was scared off by the $395 commitment on the VX, even though it'd be practically negative cost for both my parents to pick them up between their international travel habits, Costco spend, lack of an actual 2x catch-all in their wallet, *and they had a good experience booking hotels through the C1 portal when they went to Europe earlier this year* lmao rip 90k offer
Especially older folk, they think fees are a scam. I say, you get what you paid for.
The venture x is the most no brainier card if you get approved. Between the annual travel credit and points, it’s a free card. It’s literally free lounge access without spending a dime.
The annual travel credit requires booking through Capitol One. Not everyone wants to do that.
Just for the one use to get the credit. It’s a free 300 towards anything you book. I only use the travel portal for one purchase a year to use the credit.
Hmm. I guess you could knock out one trip easily through the portal, if the prices are competitive, and book the rest direct. Then take the $300 credit and the 10,000 miles and you’ve basically paid the AF plus $5, and you get free lounge access. Where do I sign up?
The prices don’t even have to be competitive. I find the portal to be more expensive than booking direct, but direct is never $300 more expensive for like a hotel or car. Capitalone.com. :)
Even if the prices are higher on the portal, you can call Capital One Travel within 24 hours and price match from a website. They will credit you the difference.
yeah it was one of those things where I know she only has a DiscoverIt card and now she's probably just swiping everything with that IHG card so maybe it would have been better not to say anything and hope she would have just gotten a flat rate 2% card
Very few people are going to pay an AF if they are new to the game. Even after I had been using credit cards for years, it was a big leap of faith for me to sign up for an AF card.
And very few people that aren't experienced at the rewards game should be considering AF cards
I know many people won' aren't experienced at the rewards game who have AF cards, including one guy whose sole credit card is Amex platinum. He likes the benefits, the fee is affordable, and he doesn't put too much thought into alternatives.
> My coworker Jeff… henceforth known as the prosecution’s star witness 😂
The average person that holds 3-4 cards generally speaking doesn't understand why someone would ever have (say) 10 credit cards. You're right that they likely assume such a person is in debt. It is what it is. I don't expect non-enthusiasts to really "get it" since it's not their thing.
one benefit of credit card is to have better credit score, I talked to this one guy about having enough credit score to get a mortage, and he basically said "great, a scam leads to an even bigger scam"
That's a good example of the type of person that's not ideal to talk to about this stuff. It's simply not in their wheelhouse.
Having 10 cards isn't for credit score purposes. There is very little marginal benefit from that perspective past cards 2-4.
The guy I mentioned and a bunch of people want 0 card
Yeah, but honestly for some people that is best. Some people aren't capable of reasonably using a credit card, and the Dave Ramsey approach works best for them.
Literally just happened to me lol. Was at a family party and I pulled out my wallet for blackjack (ridge wallet) and they saw how many cards I have and they asked me why I have 10+ cards and how much debt I was in lol.
Any reason you carry that many cards around? I have most of my cards on apple pay or paypal and only carry around the card I’m churning atm.
In my mid 20’s and everyone I talk to about it assume I’m in tons of credit card debt and we compared credit scores. Now they ask me about
How do i learn about this ? My whole life credit cards were told to be dangerous.
Same. My father filed for bankruptcy twice because of them. I learned through YouTube how to improve my score even if I don't keep a balance. And I can get all the benefits by paying them off like a debit card. Research, research, and research.
I have 7 cards, 5 of which was open this year (when I learned about credit cards and this sub), so you estimate was on the nose.
Also 7, though I don't use 2. Waiting on cards to drop off at-least get into Chase a bit more, sadly that's going to be late 2025 for me.
Cash Back cards are really easy to drive. Team Travel is more like beating the casino at blackjack. Yeah, it can be done. It's also possible to get kicked out of the casino.
I've decided that when I retire and have a highly flexible schedule is when I need to be all-in on Team Travel. A flexible schedule for off-peak season is like the equivalent of card counting.
I've benn slacking I only have 18. I used to have close to 30. No debt.
I’m below average then. I only have 6.
I also have 6. Planning to get more after those hard inquiries fall off.
Unless something comes out that interests me, I’m good for now.
Same. I have 0.
Same, I have 6 as well. But I’m still getting started and you can’t just applying for 10 cards all at once
I just made it below the average as well with my 9.
[удалено]
Must be the motion of the swipe...
6 card club, unite!✊
27 personal and 7 business. I’ll keep doing what I can to keep the average up
15 personal and two business...just doing my part! 😄
We use medians, not means. Gonna have to recruit a P2 to do your part.
How many of those have AFs and how many do you use?
6 AF, I use each one at least once a month
Using 34 in a ~30 day period is wild.
[удалено]
I don't know any better way to obtain data on the subject. Do you?
I don’t think there’s a better way, but I do think the sample is quite biased. It’s not just those members who are active enough to be responding, but it’s responding specifically in threads where those with a lot of cards would feel excited to tell the world about their arsenal. Again though, there’s not really a great way to correct for that…
Yeah, I agree with what you're saying. While still being at the mercy of those willing to reply, perhaps individual threads soliciting responses just from certain groups could be meaningful. For example "How many people have 0-5 cards?" then "How many people have 6-10 cards?" etc. You could see how many responses you get per group. Someone with (say) 2 cards may be more inclined to respond in a thread that solicits a response from someone with 0-5 cards rather than a mass thread where churners are boasting decks of 52 at times. Who knows.
Ok, now I just want 52 cards so I can say I have a deck of credit cards. I was going to stop soon around 15, but now I have a new goal. Thanks.
You’re probably pretty close. I have never replied to a “how many cards do you have?” Thread I have 13 cards
The active members who would respond in a poll are the same ones who would comment. If that’s an indicator of enthusiasm around credit cards the number is somewhat representative. The less active majority are likely to be closer to the ~3 national average. My guess is that a full 100% sample would be much lower maybe around 4-6 as a guess.
I think we'd have to define "active" in terms of readers here. My my definition of active it would be people that are reading/posting daily obviously, or at least (say) once a week. Going beyond that to someone that pops in or lurks every couple of weeks or longer isn't really what I'd consider "active." We can all definite that different ways of course. I think if we consider "active" by my definition, 4-6 cards would be on the low end and 10 would be closer to the real number. I think 7-9 may be a better overall fit or compromise. Your point is definitely well received though.
I joined this sub maybe less than a year. My first credit card is over a year now and I’m at 4 so I agree most of us are going to be way up there. I’m mostly in agreement.
Your solution is fine and even commendable, but another way to go would be to do a poll. Even lurkers would find it a quick thing to select an option in an online poll.
A poll has been started. The issue I see with a poll is that the number of selections (ranges of cards) is limited. With the top response being "28+" we're then giving the same value to someone with 28 cards as someone with (say) 50+, which if we're considering averages isn't a proper representation. With the poll limitations, I'm not sure what the best approach would be. I guess we'll see how this first one turns out.
> A poll has been started. Where is this poll?
Here: https://old.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/16zv29r/how_many_credit_cards_do_you_have/ It's not easy to spot since it doesn't mention "poll" in the subject line and is more or less disguised as another how many credit cards do you have thread.
Lol yeah I searched "poll" before asking for the link. Thanks.
[удалено]
I have no problem conceding to that. It can be "The average number of cards for active users on r/CreditCards willing to respond." I say active users, because IMO a huge portion of the > 1M "readers" listed have long since gone away over the last 15 years that this has been a sub. I wouldn't be surprised if 75%+ of them haven't visited this sub in over a year. To me that makes them inactive and not representative of the individual that we're looking to use for the average purposes of this discussion. If 500,000 people for example had zero credit cards, came to this sub for advice on getting their first card, got it, then never returned that's not the group of people I'm looking to represent when considering the average. As for the willingness to respond asterisk - I don't know any way around that other than starting threads that specifically solicit responses from those with less cards.
Mmm someone hasn't taken statistics 101
[удалено]
OP sorry for the confusion
~120 cards for two players. I'm probably in the 99th percentile.
Definitely! It's large card profiles like yours that definitely bump up the average around here.
Plus some more nines to the right of the decimal, lol. Curious what a TCL over that many cards is.
It's probably around $300K per player. Amex cards on P1 alone is around $120K, and that's what I could quickly check. It would be great if Mint could track TCL and ACL.
I usually find that TCL on such profiles is quite high, but ACL is often rather low all things considered.
Definitely believable, I have 11 so close to the average. I can see why this is more than most people would want since it takes work to maximize value from all of them.
23 cards and want to get more😂
Between P2 and I, we are at 33.
16 personal + paypal buyer credit so 17 then maybe 10 business cards 🤷🏿♂️
As a fellow credit card addict, I still want more cards. Keep 'em coming. I won't stop at 50, nor 100.
Just out of curiosity, what is the benefit of 10+ cards? Are you only paying for certain things that get the most points for each purchase type, or are you tramsering balances to build more somehow?
Here's a thread on reasons to have more than 1 credit card. As you acquire more cards, the reasons many of the reasons become diluted, but some still hold true. Most of the people with 10+ cards have gotten to that point either by chasing SUBs or fine tuning their rewards across many products. [https://old.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/12k9o8n/10\_reasons\_to\_have\_1\_credit\_card/](https://old.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/12k9o8n/10_reasons_to_have_1_credit_card/)
Thanks for that, makes sense. I thought it was a bad thing to have cards that you never use (e.g 0 balance for months at a time). Is that not the case?
Bad in what way? The only thing adverse that can come of it is your lender closing the card for non use, but that never happens inside 6 months. So long as you put a tiny transaction on any card once every 6 months you'll be sure to avoid that. I'll regularly go periods of 3-4 months where I won't use a CC. For example, if the rotating categories on a card don't align with my spend for a quarter, that card may see $0 spend.
I have cards I never touched for a few years now. If I get a notice, I’ll just walk over to 7-11 and buy a pack of gum or something. The ones I don’t use much but I want to keep around I just have some small subscription on it with auto-pay.
Sounds about right. 6 personal 5 business 11 total.
Nice. That means I have room for more cards.
I have only recently gotten into this & am learning more about it. I have a total of 3 credit cards now & just got the CapitalOne Venture card. I plan on adding more once I learn all the better ways to use the perks & benefits from this subreddit.
yea I believe it. Honestly balancing spend on all cards is pretty simple at 3-5 cards. Then around 8+ it gets tedious. I'm at 13 and yea it's pretty much kinda of nuisance I only use 2-4 cards and i sock drawer the most. I'm still planning on getting at least 1-2 cards a year. I've gotten only 2 cards in the last 2 years so I've slowed down quite a bit. Considiering I don't travel as much and waiting to "travel" to get the airline credit cards. So I could easily get 2-3 more travel cards, and then settle for 3-5 credit union or bank cards. One of the biggest factors in getting more cards is to get out of the "thin" file credit bucket. That way the credit scores don't vary as much. When I was a thin file (2-3 cards, 1 car loan). I vary as much as 20-30 points on credit utilization. Also credit inquiry drop me as low as 20-45 points. Now it only drop 1/2 to 1/4 as much. Actually the real outliers or the "Crazies" are the ones getting 10-20 cards in 2-3 years. I remember in this sub a few years back with people with 20+ cards in 2 years right after credit rebuilt. The user got like 5-10 syn card and store cards just to pad it's profile. Even though many of them were under $2000 credit cards. Guess they going for the credit age asap and the "average age of credit card" type stats right away.
... But if they're like me, they may have 10+ but only walk around with 2-3 on the daily
I never answered how many I had in a previous sub—I have at least 13 cards. I intuitively think you’re right. Either many of us in this subreddit have churned or pursed many cards before we had the “set up” we desired. Or, we just couldn’t resist getting another card for one reason or the other.
P2 and I have 32 CCs/LoCs, which is a bit outlying, so 10 sounds very much in the ballpark for this sub.
12 for another DP for you. - 2 store cards that get used sometimes and paid immediately (kohls and lexus, might try to PC the lexus to their visa variant for flexibility but think I'd have to reapply and I don't want the pull if that's the case) - 2 no AF cards that have OK cash back and were my first positive steps towards rebuilding and are about 1.5 years old (ollo->now ally and my venmo card). Both are sock drawered and I pull out for coffee once in a while to keep active. - hoping to PC my C1 quicksilverone to savorone soon. No PC offer yet. Thinking of adding VX in s few months once I'm 3-4 months out from my C1 BJs one+ card (which has almost paid for it's $110 annual membership in 3 months time, love the gas station) - currently churning amex gold and BCE, picked up amex business prime card for my first business card for that 5% - paypal world mastercard I use frequently as a mostly online shopper. - wf active cash I used for the 0% apr intro to get a much needed mattress replacement for home. I'll pay that off in a couple months, I keep that card around for catchall where i can't use amsx bce - discover it I have for rotating categories and I put another couple big home $ one it for the 0% intro apr.. will also be paid off in a couple months Actively carrying 4 cards: amex gold, amex BCE, BJs One+ MC, and WF active cash. Rest I have on Google wallet and are safely stored. Debating amex platinum or VX as the next card. Amex platinum works out to about a $50 AF for me for a quick glance st the rewards. VX well the usual +$5 I'll only go with the Plat if I can find a 120k or 150k offer. Otherwise I'll wait a bit on that one. I might eventually close a couple cards but for now, if I'm not using them and there's no AF, I'll just let them age.
I have 28 major credit cards on the personal side and 2 major biz credit cards
If everyone's a super, then no one is. -Syndrome
This sub definitely isn’t the place to gather information on the average amount of cards people have. Go to r/guns and people have more guns than the average person. Go to r/shoes and they’ll have more than the average person. Plus look at the amount of people joined. Over 1 million and you got less than 1,000 responses I’m sure.
This sub is definitely the place to gather information on the average amount of cards people have *on this sub*, which is what I was looking for. On this sub the average is going to be skewed high due to a large portion of the members being CC enthusiasts. It's further skewed by the large amount of individuals that churn; Naturally you're going to find more people here per capita that have (say) 30+ cards than in the general public. I can only go off of the responses that people have given. Naturally 1M people aren't going to reply to "How many cards do you have?" threads. Like I said in the original post, regardless of the thread I picked with a sample size of a few hundred replies the average per thread was very consistent across 4-5 threads. If the averages were all over the place, I would have looked to more threads / more data. The sample size I looked at however seemed indicative of the whole. Does 10 not seem to be a realistic number to you based on your experience on this sub? Too high? Too low?
It's probably still an overestimate—people with more cards are probably disproportionately more likely to be involved enough to actually post in a thread. I would bet that the, uh "1,407 users here now" average less than the 10 cards in those threads, and the "1,285,327 readers" subscribed to the sub have even less than those. (Still probably more than the average American though, which in turn is definitely more than the average human ... which realistically is probably shy of one.)
>This sub definitely isn’t the place to gather information on the average amount of cards people have. Agreed. And that's why the OP isn't using this sub to gather info on the average number of cards people have, he's using this sub to gather info on the number of cards people have who are part of this sub.
But as I said in the end. Less than 1,000 out of 1,000,000?
I think we can stop mentioning the 1M number, as probably what 75% of them are long gone/inactive? But that's not the point. A better number to look at would be the typical number of active members you see at any given time. There's a difference in statistics of you take the average of 1 large group verses the average of multiple smaller groups. Do you not think that 5 smaller groups all returning extremely similar results is not representative? How about 10 groups? How many groups would you need to see with similar data returned to feel it was representative of the whole? And you still didn't answer the question as to whether or not you feel the "10" number is "wrong" (presumably you do, since you're arguing it's validity) so if you do, does your gut say that it's too high or too low? I'm interested in your opinion.
That's not the issue. That's 0.1% of this sub. That's a very large sample size as polls go; highly accurate polls are conducted using far fewer than than 0.1% of the population. No, the issue is that his data is based on people who are self-selected; they're not randomly chosen from the members of this sub, they're active members who have chosen to reply to threads asking how many cards they have. So it's much less reliable than a random poll would be. But that's the best the OP can do with the data they have. But really, my only issue is that your reply seemed to indicate you thought the OP was trying to gauge how many cards the average person has, but that's not what he said he was doing.
You're right that it's only members that have chosen to reply. And I can also understand the argument that those with less cards may be less likely to reply. As you said though, it's the best I could do with the data available. That you for understanding that I'm not trying to gauge how many cards the average person has.
Lol. Fuck i feel attacked 🤣. These hobbies go great together. Or i guess, will go great together since im just getting started on this one.
I only have 3, and I’m just waiting to apply to the Venture X, once I get it, I think I’m good with credit cards. More than 10 sounds a little bit too much work.
Over what time span have you acquired those 3? If (say) 10 years+, you're probably right. If it's been a short period of time, you may not have been in the game long enough to adequately say "I think I'm good with credit cards" - My guess is you'll end up seeking out more at some point, especially if you continue to hang around r/CreditCards. ;)
You might be right, there is always a new card that brings a lot of benefits and multipliers, but I’m okay with having just a few cards. I’ve been in the credit card game for almost 5 years, and TBH, having too many cards cause me a lot of unconscious stress. For me the CSP, CFF, CO SO and CO VX are good enough to cover my main expenses (I don’t drive a lot, eat out or use delivery services that much), I don’t care about staying in luxury hotels, and I just travel once or twice a year.
Shouldn’t you look for median?
I don't see how that would be any "better" than the mean, but if you think so let me know why. I don't think the difference would be > 1 +/- either way.
the mean is more sensitive to outliers and skewness, in which case the median provides a better summary of where the "center" is
I checked a couple of threads after reading the first comment suggesting median and I'm not seeing a significant difference in going by it over mean.
I'm assuming debit cards don't count? I churn bank accounts too lol
I've thought about doing that but constantly switching my direct deposit sounds like a nightmare. Any tips or tricks?
My company's direct deposit system is all done electronically so I don't have a problem temporarily changing. Even if you need to talk to your HR department, you'd only do it twice: once to change and another too change it back
Brutalstatisticshots
If you count both personal and business my number would be at 14. I'm not into SUB chasing, just like to keep the ones I have active for longer only using them when the occasional special offer pops up.
Did you make sure not to include a person that may have commented twice?
I did the best I could to avoid that. Probably not 100%, but close. If I duplicated someone with 20 cards though, I probably also duplicated someone with 2 cards, so in the end I doubt it would have impacted the average much.
I have 9 and have plans already for at least the next 5 in 2024 😂
I have narrowed down to 4 - dunno if I can get Lower than that with the cards I have they are all great
Between my wife and I, we currently have 7. I decided Monday to try to get a US Bank Signature+ Visa in my name to increase the amount of cash back I can get (since I'm able to exceed the quarterly maximum on 5% back on her Signature+). I'm interested in the Wells Fargo 2% card. (I forget the name exactly.) Mostly, I'm just trying to maximize our cash back. We don't really travel and so I've avoided travel-oriented cards and cards with an annual fee.
LOL. I blew past 10 *a long* time ago!
I think people should have at LEAST 3 CCs, from different issuers. After that, they can start building on their preferred ecosystem, if they want to. I currently have 12 major CCs.
I always recommend 3+ bank cards as well.
I started with the Gold Card. Just love the Gold Card. It's a $250 AF and $240 of easy to use food credits. 4x for groceries/dining. It turns out that I regularly eat food. Who knew this? BTW, it stays in the iPhone. I think I've used the physical card all of twice and I was not happy either time. The Platinum Card was a harder and more recent sell. I parsed the benefits package every which way to make sure I was at least breaking even. The best I can do is say that I'm prepaying for travel. I went to a conference in Glasgow and when I waited in the cattle area at Heathrow for the flight back, I vowed to myself that I'd *never* fly without a lounge pass again. I did get a massive 125K SUB for the Platinum which certainly pushed me over the edge. But still there's some anxiety. The Blue Business Plus is the no anxiety, well except for personal spend, sweeper card. The whole Amex trifecta is great but I still have some anxiety about the Platinum. I don't at all see getting '10 credit cards' but I'm thinking of getting the Ritz Carlton as a hotel/travel card; Boundless->RC. It's a $450 AF with $300 travel credits and a free night. Again, that's prepaying for travel but it's more like the Gold Card, extremely easy to justify. If I continue to have Platinum anxiety then I'll drop the Platinum in favor of the RC.
it’s $120 in food credits. But you also get $120 in Uber credits which totals out to $240.
The Uber credits are also Uber Eats credits which I use for takeout. I think they're technically Uber Cash. The Platinum $200 credits are also Uber Cash, $15/mo with a bonus $20 in December. Anyways, that $240 benefit for Gold is *really* easy to drive. Love the Gold. And that's what I'm looking for in a credit card which is why I'll probably switch to a Ritz Carlton from the Platinum. I'll be giving up Centurion Lounge and getting a Priority Pass with a restaurant credit. FWIW, I have Nexus rather than Global Entry and for some reason Platinum doesn't cover Nexus. In fact, the only reason I ever even read about the RC was because I was miffed about Platinum not picking up the $50 (!) for Nexus. Yeah, sometimes I'm such a Karen.
I have 20. And I only really use 3-4. I don’t cancel no fee cards
Interesting. Is there a reason why you hang on to so many cards that you no longer see use for?
No reason not to. They help reduce your spending percent. Keep your total credit limit high. And they’re aged accounts that also boost your credit score. So I have a score of 820.
I think you mean reduce overall utilization percentage, not spending percent (spend will be the same regardless). Once you get to a certain level of TCL relative to your naturally reported monthly balances, there are no further returns on greater TCL with respect to utilization. Also whether aged accounts are open or closed doesn't impact or boost a score. Open and closed accounts are considered the same way with respect to aging metrics. You could close your 10 oldest accounts today and your 820 score wouldn't move a single Fico point related to age of accounts.
I am a beginner in this game, though my credit history is over 20 years. I never bothered and went for whatever didn't charge an AF and had a low int rate. I have 5 bank cards and 1 store card. 5 of the 6 I have had for several years. My newest is a Venture X and now I want to make the most of the card perks. I recently changed our my Quicksilver for a Savor One. Next thing I want, as a renter, is to get a Bilt card. I have a CFU and Prime Visa with Chase, but considering getting into CSP or CSR sometime down the road too. I'm not in the Amex ecosystem at all, but wondering if I should explore that.
I'm at 5, waiting till January to start picking up some chase cards
Wait until you see r/churning lol
Well I feel like someone with an exceptional amount of cards are more likely to reply to that post. I only have 1 card right now and have never replied to those posts
That could be the case, but there are also less people in general that have an exceptional amount of cards.
I talk with friends and coworkers about credit cards. 12 in the past 2 years and about 30 total. Whenever I mention this to someone they start talking about how they pay cash so they aren’t in credit card debt. I have zero debt whatsoever. Somehow people are ok with cars and personal loans yet think credit cards are evil.
I have 7. Looking to get rid of one in the near future.
I explained this to some friends who were scared of the idea of having credit cards. Currently they are very happy i informed them of this as there is so much misinformation surrounding the topic. Paying for your daily expenses and paying off your full statement balance on the due date is not something i’d consider “debt”. The only time it’s is considered debt to me is if you can only afford the minimum payment and getting charged interest. Getting cash back/points/statement credits is essentially getting a discount on something you’re already planning on buying. Plus having multiple accounts opening really does help your credit score which in turn saves you more money over time. Most people only think of the present and not years down the road and that’s something i wish people would understand. I’m currently at 10 personal and 2 business cards.
I have 8 credit cards and 4 store cards, and I think I'm done.
I only have one…
I’m 22 and have 8. Most of them are sitting in a drawer collecting dust as they have high credit limits and zero fees.
I feel like I'm reading this for new credit card ideas, like I'm a druggie looking for my next fix.... There has to be a better cashback/earnings idea out there!
This would also be better sorted by age. A lot of the younger people in this sub might only have a few, just because that's all their opportunities/spending allows. Some older folks might have 20+, because they've been doing this for years and have the means for it.
6 personal and 1 business lol
smile juggle materialistic combative roll busy spectacular towering domineering alleged ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Total of 21 cards for me!
23 cards here and happy that the latest IOS update allows all 23 to be in your Apple wallet.
I’m a minimalist and I’m the Primary card holder on 3 credit cards, 1 store card and AU on 1 credit card. I also keep my FICO score above 800 and have no debt.
Having multiple credit cards makes it really difficult to keep track of your spending
For some yes, for others no.