Here’s what I have:
Two “main” cc, each with different “points”. I carry one or the other, depending on where I want my points. I charge about $1500/mo and pay it all off every month.
One CC just for Paypal (safety and tracking)
One emergency back up with a fairly high limit, kept in safe deposit box.
One travel back up with a low limit. This is taken with me when I travel, hidden in the luggage, in case my wallet is lost or stolen.
So I have 5, and a reason for each.
This is something like what we do. My husband has to travel for business, so it’s very convenient for him to have a high limit card to use for his expenses, and only those expenses, that he incurs while traveling and staying somewhere. We have a couple of joint cards, too. We have a few gas station cards, though we’re slowly getting rid of those. And I have my debit/ATM card for my personal checking account. My husband does internet banking, but he refuses to get a debit/ATM card attached to his account. It’s just one of his little quirks, same as he likes pork chops but doesn’t like pork roast.
I’m with you. I have two - I like my Discover bonus awards and I carry a Visa for the places (especially in Europe) that don’t take Discover. When I work at a company that issues me one, I carry theirs as well. But I would never have more than that.
I have four cards (plus two debit cards with credit card logos that I use when in the US). The MC costs $50/year and returns 1% which last year amounted to $400 so you can calculate how much I put on it. Incidentally, I would give it up immediately if merchants would give me a 1 or 2% discount for cash, but they don’t My bank pays that in full every month from my account and I have never paid 1 cent of interest. Second I have a Visa account for a couple of people I do business with regularly who don’t take MC. I pay that off every month, usually by walking up to the bank, so I even avoid postage. Third, I have a business MC that is strictly limited to business use and must be accounted, with receipts, monthly It is paid by my university. Fourth, I have a business AMEX card that is billed to me. In theory, it is supposed to be used for business expenses, but there is no control. I keep it and use it for one thing only: free collision insurance on rented vehicles.
Like just about everyone, I am (or used to be anyway) showered with credit card offers in the mail. I destroy the cards, cutting them up and even depositing the pieces in different trash bins.
Oh and I have a $20K line of credit (1% above prime) that I think I used only once and even avoided paying interest. An extremely friendly bank submanager knew I need the money for only a few days and knew that it would take a few days for the credit to be approved by the head office. She gave us a five day, interest-free bridge loan and I paid it within the five days. She explained what she had done only after when I wondered why no interest.
I don’t know what my credit rating is–as far as I know, there is no right to a free report in Canada, but I resent the fact that, even though I pay off every month, my credit suffers because I use a significant percentage of the limit. Not that I am likely to need to borrow anything ever again.
In at least some portions of the US (don’t know about other countries) it’s illegal to charge one price for cash and another for credit, so giving a discount for cash is illegal.
Our main credit card (amazon.com), for the rewards.
Home Depot Mastercard because we had a home insurance claim and I had to buy a lot there – extra % back on store purchases, plus a % discount on all purchases the day you open it.
Old Navy (store only) card for cardholder discounts.
Capital One card which has no currency exchange fees when used to buy items in other countries. This stays at home with our passports, so if one of us loses our wallet, then we have a backup.
My husband has an REI Visa card because they were offering $50 off first purchase or something like that. It wouldn’t be worth it for me, but that’s his choice.
[I have a number of friends who have the LL Bean Visa card for the free shipping from LLBean.com, and I imagine there are other stores that offer similar benefits that make it worthwhile for people.]
And for the record, we have never once not paid off our bills every month.
We don’t have debit cards attached to our accounts, only an ATM card that we only use at the bank ATM or if we are getting cash back. There is a legitimate reason not to get a Visa / Mastercard branded debit card against your accounts: if I’m going to have a card compromised I’d much prefer the consequence being that the credit card company has had their money stolen, rather than I have had my money stolen. Sure, you get your money back (assuming you report it in time), but I’d rather not have my money gone in the first place.
You’ve got that mixed up. Having a surcharge for the credit card is illegal. Offering a cash discount is perfectly acceptable. Unless there’s some jurisdiction I’m not aware of that has everything mixed up and allows merchants to violate terms of their merchant agreements
I have several store credit cards I don’t use because they were offered with great deals on a significant purchase. Several years ago, I bought a ~$2000 computer on a Best Buy card because I got 10% off and 12 months interest free. Now, I paid it off in 3 months or so instead of 12, but it is real nice to be able to slowly pay off major appliances at my own pace without interest. I’ve had similar deals several times since then, for a big screen tv at American, refrigerator from Lowe’s, etc. I don’t keep a balance on these cards and eventually I’ll call up the company and close out the accounts, but I’m not in a big hurry.
I do have an all purpose Visa card that I use when I actually need to buy something on credit, but that is rare.
I have four. My card-by-card reasoning is as follows:
Bank of America - first card I opened. No balance. I keep it around because it’s my oldest account. Being 25, I’ve only had established credit for a few years; it will be closed when I turn 28.
Wachovia - my second card. Opened because I got a good deal on it though circumstances too complicated to explain here. Carries a medium-high balance because I stupidly lent money to the wrong “friends” (long story, ultimately my own damn fault). Being paid off when and where I can.
Capital One. No balance. I’d love to close it, but I originally opened it because having it open decreases my total debt compared to total credit limit until the Wachovia card gets paid off, so no harm keeping it around until that happens.
Chase Amazon.com - opened for rewards. Used when I buy stuff on Amazon, and immediately paid off. Higher credit limit than my other cards, so it’s also my “emergency card” should I find myself stranded penniless by the roadside.
I have 7 cards.
Two don’t count. One is a corporate AMEX for travel expenses, one is a corporate purchasing card.
One is completely inactive. It’s a Target card. When I moved apartments a few years ago I bought nearly $1,000 worth of home items at Target. They offered me 10% off if I opened a Target card so I did. Got the discount, paid the balance off in full a week later, shredded the card.
I have to Bank of America cards. The first goes back to college, when I got the card through the University Credit Union. A few years back, I actually read the statement and saw that my interest rate on that card was completely horrible. Made no sense since my credit rating was stellar. I called and asked them to lower the rate. They said they couldn’t on that card but I could open another card at a much better rate. I only had a few hundred on the bad rate card so I just paid it off, shredded it and got the new card. I still have the old account just to help with my credit history; I haven’t used the card in years.
I use the newer Bank of America card as my primary credit card.
I have a more or less inactive Citi card. I got into a bit of a credit mess two years ago and got up to about $5,000 in credit debt. Citi had 0% teaser rate on transfers, so I opened the card and transferred all balances to it. I didn’t quite make the 1-year period to pay it all down, but it was cleared after about 18 months. So I saved probably $550 in interest over that year. I paid off the card, haven’t touched it since.
Last I have a Visa floating around. It’s my oldest card. I think I got it from my parents bank when I was 18. I don’t use it.
So I do in fact have 7 different lines of credit, though I really only use one card.
Is a surcharge for using credit illegal, or against policy?
I used to underwrite second mortgages and would often require that several (or all) of the borrower’s credit cards be paid off for debt to income purposes. Some of our borrowers had an unbelievable number of credit cards, especially store cards like Best Buy, Target and Lowes. And it was not uncommon at all to find 8 or more credit cards with balances on the person’s credit report. I’ve even seen some credit reports with over 15 active credit cards with total balances of over $100k.
I actually have around 10 credit cards myself but that’s because I’ve never bothered to close any of my older cards when I paid them off or transferred balances. All of them currently have $0 balances anyway, but if I wanted to, I could rack up a lot of debt in a short amount of time. My dad recently showed me his collection of about 125 credit cards although many still have the activation stickers on them or been expired for at least a couple of years.
There are two companies that you can get a free credit report from in Canada once every two years:
Equifax - http://www.equifax.com/contact_us/en_ca (Phone the 800 number at the bottom and they will mail it to you - the online version is pay)
Transunion - http://www.transunion.ca/ca/personal/consumersupport/contactus_en.page (Again you have to contact them through the mail or phone for the free version)
Thought you should know. Getting one every once in awhile helps to keep things up to date and make sure no one is using your identity…