I should have mentioned this earlier, but the thing that really helped me slim my collection of cards was putting some rules in place. I needed to start somewhere, so I assigned a mental cost of $100/year to the extra effort involved in having to consider each additional card when completing transactions.

For cards to make the cut they must either:

1. Offer some unique feature that makes the card itself worthwhile.
2. Earn $100/year more than cards that get included as part of rule 1

So Plat gets included for best-in-class purchase protection, travel insurance-like features and lounge access. Venture X gets included for primary CDW + no FTF flat 2x VISA. The Costco card gets included because it reduces friction when shopping at Costco. (single tap for gas, and it’s the only card you can add to the digital membership card for 1 “scan” membership+pay in the warehouse)

In addition to the 3 cards I carry, other “sock drawer” cards that stick around include the US Bank Cash+ for 5% on utilities & Internet/streaming, Amazon Prime VISA for 5%, Target Red Card for 5% + free shipping on online orders, and BoA Better Balance Rewards for $120/year in “free” money. These are “set it and forget” it cards, so I might consider hanging on to them even if they violated rule #2 simply because no purchase-time decision is required with these cards (they are all assigned to autopay or shopping accounts).

Other cards that I had like the US Bank Altitude Go, while I think it’s an excellent card, ended up not making the cut because I’d need to spend more than $10k/year dining out for it to earn more than $100 over what the Costco VISA yields with 3% cash back. Long-held cards like my Discover IT also got the axe because the categories weren’t useful every quarter and even in useful quarters the maximum advantage was capped at $45 more than straight 2% cash back.