Originally Posted by
SpaethCo
I'm not at all worried about the credit score impact, which is why the majority of my cards acquired for the bonus over the years have been closed. My threshold has been that a card has to yield at least $100/year in benefits to stick around.
As to why I haven't closed more cards:
- I'm terrible at assigning myself a fair value for my time and effort when it comes to non-business endeavors.
- If you're going to do a case-by-case review, it's not like any specific card tends to stand out as unusually burdensome unless customer service is abnormally terrible (ie, BoA).
- Cutting from 13 cards to 12 or 11 doesn't meaningfully reduce the decision making burden.
... and most importantly, I have spreadsheets that show exactly how much money I'm going to leave on the table to simplify things down. Since I can't fairly value my time, the spreadsheet wins for regret minimization, and I am sort of resigned to suck it up and deal with the complexity.
I used to be like you and want to maximize all earnings even with the complexity but I've resigned to the fact that when it comes to chasing points with cards, less IS more. When I was trying to maximize all my purchases, I ended up having 20,000 points here, 20,000 points there all across multiple hotels/airlines/transferrable currencies and it became frustrating because I wasn't accumulating the quantity of points needed for any meaningful redemptions. Not to mention the time it took to keep up with the current bonuses, extra points deals, etc it was just getting to be too much even with an Excel spreadsheet. It was no longer FUN, it was becoming almost like a second job. I came to this conclusion last January of 2020 and decided I was going to start purging my wallet and BOOM COVID hit...which COMPLETELY changed the landscape. Now all these cards were offering all sorts of enticements to keep them open- Amex in particular on the Platinum and Chase on the CSR.
So I decided....one more year tracking the complexity and credits because the value was outsized compared to the cost. But now here we are...and it's time to do the purge I wanted to do over a year ago. Time to start downgrading, cancelling, and consolidating. I currently have 9 cards: CSR, CFU, CF, Amex Platinum, Delta Platinum, United Gateway, IHG Visa, Hyatt Visa, and Marriott Boundless. After I'm done I hope to be at 4 or 5 core cards.
While yes you will lose a few points on the table, you'll gain in having a hoard of UR's that can give outsized value when used correctly. We will see how it goes but I'm looking forward to simplifying a bit and not having to track my spending anymore to maximize value.