Credit Cards management
 

Hi I am a newbie of this credit card signup game. As soon as I applied for 4,5 cards, I realized so many cards I need to keep track of which one is with annual fee, when is first year free annual fee due, when do I need to pay, and so on. Is there a good spreadsheet as a template for me to use? How do you guys maintain 40 or so credit cards? I am wondering.

Please forgive me if I asked duplicate questions here. I just can't find a place talk about this. thank you so much!

Welcome to Flyer Talk. I use Quicken for finance and Award Wallet for rewards tracking. I have all my accounts set up online and daily updates are a breeze. I handle about 50 finance accounts and 92 loyalty programs for myself and family.

I use a combination of Award Wallet, Mint, and this spreadsheet from Creditboards.

The best thing may be to experiment with a bunch of different possible solutions until you find what works for you.

Thank you! I wish there's a tutorial to go through some basic things like how to use Quicken to manage credit cards/ financial accounts.

Does AwardWallet help me track which accounts with annual fee and when will these credit cards first year due?

I'm new to all of this too. Last year I had two credit cards and they were only for emergencies. This year I have 10. Managing them gets complicated.

I got the walla.by app on my phone. It helps me determine which card to use where/when. It also keeps track of upcoming bills (I have them all set to auto pay so that's no big deal but it helps see where I'm spending). It also has other features but I don't really use those (at least not yet).

I have Mint also but I find it frustrating because it has trouble syncing with many of my accounts. It's still a great tool to see your overall financial picture (because you can include your mortgae, cars, student loans, retirement accounts, assets, etc), but Mint won't tell you which credit card to use where in order to maximize rewards.

I think I need to add Award Wallet to my system too. :)

I have a spreadsheet that has grown from a basic checking account ledger to include a full list of all of my card, signup bonuses, reward tracking, interest tracking, and all kinds of other stuff. I now keep it in Google sheets for easy access.

I tried Mint and didn't find much use for it. I just looked at Wallaby and don't see much use there. It does not seem to get the right card, for example telling me to use my Blue Cash Preferred for 3% at gas stations instead of my PenFed for 5%. It also does not seem to let you assign values to points or consider a branded hotel card might be better than the 3X of a Citi Prestige.

Part of my spreadsheet has a listing of cards and the point values I assign based on my historical redemption. I then use conditional formatting to color the matrix for at a glance review. If my value of a point changes it is a simple matter to update one cell and it will recalculate.

Same here though I don't really worry over tracking signup bonuses and rewards tracking is only done for cards with caps. I also use Mint for analytics.

I don't worry about tracking the AF's and treat them like any other transaction. Payment due dates are part of the spreadsheet that I use.

There are a lot of templates out there. As with any subject, good is highly subjective. What makes a template good or not all depends on what one is specifically looking to do. It doesn't sound like what I use is quite what you're looking for. Mine started out as a simple checkbook register but then was split into two tabs, one for crude budgeting and one for what was the detailed checkbook register. An additional tab was added later to track credit card transaction detail. It's really still basically a register, just for multiple accounts but it fulfills my requirements.

I have a combination of Mint Bills (which is not the same as Mint) and Prism apps on my phone. Prism app is working better than Mint Bills lately. With those I track my credit cards (more than 30) and most of all other bills.
For rewards activity I use awardwallet.

My system seems pretty simple compared to most on here. I have a spreadsheet where I keep track of all cards, the bonus received, date of application, bonus receipt, etc. To fix the issue of keeping track of due dates I always call after activating a card and switch so that the statement close date is always the first of every month. This makes it much simpler since I can go through and pay the all off at the same time.

Qucken is very easy to use. The screen looks just like a check register. You can add future dated entries to keep up with annual fees. The annual fee charge will download too, leaving plenty of time to cancel or call to try for a retention bonus.

I use excel online to keep track of my cards, fees, approvals/denials, dates, and credit bureaus that were pulled so I know which kind of card I should apply to next.

AwardWallet is great for managing your points, and I loved Mint for managing my credit cards, but I've ditched Mint because most banks state that you are responsible for any losses through 3rd party services.

I also have a google calendar set up for travel/points related stuff, which keeps travel dates, card anniversaries, and notes when I use the shopping portals 30-45 days out so I know when to notify the bank that my points never posted. Because they never do.

If you use consolidated portal such as mint, aren't you concerned about the security of your financial information? You are putting login and passwords for number of your accounts in one place and the site were ever to be hacked,all of the information for the various accounts is available to hackers in pone shot.

Also can you see your spouse's accounts under one mint login as long as you know their login and password? The names don't have to match correct?

Yes, you can view accounts with different owners in one mint account.

I think many people are greatly over-complicating things.

A simple table with columns for the things you care about - an Excel sheet works just fine. Plus a simple text file with other details. You don't need anything more than that.

If you find that managing a dozen credit cards is a complex, challenging burden, this might not be the right hobby for you...

I agree - What are some of the key things to track?especially in reference to churning.

Date a/c opened
Date Bonus received
Date A/C closed.

These are must, correct? when you are applying for churn-able cards. Is there anything else you think is important?

You would also want to track , the credit cards applied but were not approved.

I believe the 24 months wait time starts from the bonus received.