I seriously doubt the veracity of this claim but I will suspend judgment if you have evidence supporting it. Incidentally, the commercial you refer to featured the CEO of Lifelock bragging that his identity was secure, but his identity was hacked 20 times as a result of the publicity. It's not a good example to cite for your case.

Yeah, 300k across all cards isn't such a high mark.

300k on a single credit line aside from the AMEX charge card would be remarkable.

Personal best is a 75K on a single card and 150k in total from an individual bank.

It's no preset limit, not no limit. The limit is set each time a charge is processed.

*yawn* If anything, it sounds like he might have some suboptimal practices. Other than sign-up bonuses, it seems like anything over about 6 cards is diluting your total potential rewards.

Did they grant you 75k on that card right away? Or did it start off much lower and then you gradually requested credit increases over the years?

That card was 50k initially and they increased over the years. Had an app-o-rama a few years back on that bank and split out the Credit line to bring back down under 50k.

For some reason banks don't like multiple cards above 50k. No problem having several of them at 45k though. Go figure..those pesky computer algorithms.

I tend to agree. For my spending, aside from using a branded card for travel-specific expenses, the optimal set of "everyday spending" cards is 4, plus up to 2 rotating-bonus-category cards. Can't believe it would be much different for anyone else.

It sounds like he follows targeted discounts for retailer-specific cards, etc. Just too much work for me to keep track of it. And right now, I'm not going to eat a hard pull so I can get every department store card. It would take some serious discounts to make up for losing a 50k+ air mile/point signup bonus.

300k is nothing amazing. I tipped my parents off to the AA 75k bonus and between them they opened 75K in credit and got a combined 225K miles. ANd they dont claim to be gurus at working the cards.

He pays rent with Credit card, how does he do that?

Maybe this? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...nt-online.html

...unless you were doing uber coins (current back order era notwithstanding) on every one of your cards and/or maxing them out (and continually paying them off in a well-managed way) via some other miles earning gigs so you could earn on every card/airline/hotel as much as possible.... I mean, just think if you could nearly max out every card you have with coins every 10 days, then pay it off and do it again?

That said, I will tell you I have a significant handful of cards and I do use them for different things. I rotate my every day ones and I assign others to things like, for example, the following:

My Hilton Amex auto-pays the cable and phone bill and I use it to do most of the groceries and pharma shopping because it earns 6 points/dollar (I think it still does, that is lol)

If I happen to find myself in need of a rental car, or if I am going to ever pay for a hotel or airline ticket or parking, I could use the capital one because these travel expenses could be redeemed with points earned on those cards. I could get reimbursed for such expenses if it's a work thing, AND pay for all of it on my bill with C1 miles that I earned along the way.

My new 5% card is also in my wallet for many every day purchases as well as big ones that, when I add it all up, could amount to well over $30k a month. This card is new for me so I gotta keep it going like that to see what comes of it.

We also must not forget about the SPG Amex and a host of other cards that, beyond sign up bonus and spend requirements, can continue to earn many points if used continually where well planned out and needed.

MM

I used to dabble in the "everyday spend" type cards but realized that the total incremental gain in rewards over a month's worth of spending wasn't worth the hassle. The main reason: I don't drive much, and the biggest opportunity for those cards for a single consumer user seems to be gasoline.

The main reasons I can think of for holding many cards:

(a) Your primary-spending needs have changed over time, but your original round of cards is what keeps your average account age up. Then canceling all of those old cards could actually result in a negative impact to your credit score.

(b) You charge enough to hit three or four of the big threshold perks that are out there. Say you charge $200-300k a year. Why not run through a couple different BA Visas for extra award certificates, the HH Amex for Diamond status, and a couple of EQM-bearing cards for your favorite airlines? So then I could see holding 5-6 cards for threshold spending, plus a couple other hotel cards, plus a no-FX card and maybe 1-2 others...quickly you're at 10-15 cards.

(c) You really do spend a lot in the "everyday spending" categories. Gassing up a fleet of vehicles, maybe buying a lot in bulk from a home improvement store, paying for cell phones for all of your small business's employees, etc. Then I'd be likely to carry specific cards and require my employees to carry them too, if applicable.

Agree with your general argument. However, when I really looked at the numbers, two categories are very high on my spend list, especially when traveling - restaurants and gas.

For that reason, I do keep specific cards to earn 5% on gas and 4% on restaurants, and usually use branded cards for hotels and airfare.

But, in general, I agree with you. There are cards that give a good rebate at home improvement stores, for example. But I might spend $20 in a month. It's not worth the effort and the credit pull for the card when it's worth maybe 40 cents a month.

Also, if I were starting out now and didn't already have these cards, I'd be much more focused on maximizing sign-up bonuses. That's where the real payoff is.

I see your points. I fit into a A catagory here mostly.

But I still like getting and using many cards. My scores are around 750

I am simply fascinated by the 'haters' on yahoo commenting on the article.

If any of them found their way here to this site, I fear we'd all be collectively lynched.

As far as the article itself goes, not that impressed. $300K total credit line among all cards isn't much to the typical FTer. I do find it peculiar that has 25 active cards. I usually cycle through about that many in a year, but, never have more than 10 active ones at any given time (including my core/old accounts).