Does having multiple credit cards hurt your credit?

chisnpeke

<font color=blue>Got the blues on purple tag night
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I have 4 credit cards. One regular Visa, two reward Visas (Royal Caribbean and Disney) and a Discover card. I am looking at getting a L.L. Bean Visa card for when I order from there. My credit is currently good and I have some debt on my one card but nothing unmanageable. So, does having multiple cards hurt my credit?
 
I have 4 credit cards. One regular Visa, two reward Visas (Royal Caribbean and Disney) and a Discover card. I am looking at getting a L.L. Bean Visa card for when I order from there. My credit is currently good and I have some debt on my one card but nothing unmanageable. So, does having multiple cards hurt my credit?

Short answer: no.
 
Generally speaking, no. If you have too much available credit and you apply for a mortgage or car loan, it *might* cause a hiccup (they fear you may go crazy and run up your cards and get yourself in trouble) but overall it isn't a big deal.
 
I "cleaned up" my credit report years ago by closing down old accounts I had forgotten about, and even some current accounts that I just didn't anticipate using any longer. Yeah, I know...bad idea...but even with doing that and still having some four or five open credit cards and a student loan, my credit was decent when we went to get our mortgage - not absolutely stellar, but quite good.

So no, having a few open accounts generally doesn't hurt you.

Now, I've opened some accounts recently and I really need to check and see where my score is. Who knows?! And frankly, I don't much care...at this point, it can pretty much take care of itself. :rotfl:
 

I have 4 credit cards. One regular Visa, two reward Visas (Royal Caribbean and Disney) and a Discover card. I am looking at getting a L.L. Bean Visa card for when I order from there. My credit is currently good and I have some debt on my one card but nothing unmanageable. So, does having multiple cards hurt my credit?

Generally speaking no. Your "credit" is determined by several different factors that collectively try to form a picture about how you handle borrowed money.

Having multiple lines of credit will not necessarily reduce your score. The related topic that WILL reduce your score is new accounts and credit inquiries. Having someone check your credit will reduce your credit. The more inquiries you have, the bigger the reduction. (There is an exception here when you are shopping for a single provider, like an auto loan or mortgage, where all inquiries within 14 days are considered to be one inquiry.) Having new accounts will reduce your credit. The more new accounts you have, the bigger the reduction. It's like, you are preceived as a higher risk, credit-wise if you are perceived as "shopping" for more credit and "getting" more credit. Your credit will rebound once your "new accounts" and credit inquiries are one year old. (Pretty sure about one year for inquiries, not positive for new accounts.)

About the manageable balance...Typically, the recommended ratio of debt to credit line is around 30%. It is better to have multiple cards, with mulitple debts, that each are around 30% or less, than to have one card be maxed while the others are zero. At least, it is better for your "credit." It is perceived that you are not the type of person to max a card. If one card is maxed, the worry is that you will just move onto the next card, because obviously, you aren't bothered by maxing credit. However, if you keep your debt at a nice ratio overall, then this is perceived as having "good credit management."

If you do decide to cancel cards, one consideration to keep in mind is that credit history can have a great impact on your credit. As in, the longer your credit history, the better your credit. If you do decide to close accounts, be sure to keep the oldest account open, if possible. If you close a long standing account, then you can actually hurt your credit by NOT having multiple creditors.
 
Thanks for the answers everyone! I didn't *think* it did but I wanted to make sure. TxRabbit, you are very informative. Thank you for the information.
 
What they said. I have at least a dozen, and excellent credit (of course it helps that I don't have balances on them! ;))
 
It prevented my neighbor from getting a line of credit - she had too much available credit with her cards. She had to cancel several of them, mail them back and reapply a few months later. So be careful if you're going to borrow money in the near future!
 
It prevented my neighbor from getting a line of credit - she had too much available credit with her cards. She had to cancel several of them, mail them back and reapply a few months later. So be careful if you're going to borrow money in the near future!
Wow - that's a new one to me! DH and I have a fairly big number for available credit between all of our cards, and it has never stopped us from getting a loan. :confused3 Perhaps lines of credit are different than other loans though...I've heard when you apply for an auto loan they do an auto-enhanced FICO which takes other factors into account that your normal FICO score doesn't.

Hmm...I wonder if it is the whole line of credit to income ratio...but still, one would think DH and I would have been snagged by that one too if that were the case!
 
It prevented my neighbor from getting a line of credit - she had too much available credit with her cards. She had to cancel several of them, mail them back and reapply a few months later. So be careful if you're going to borrow money in the near future!
Based on my research, Experian is the only one that reports a negative of "too many revolving credit accounts." It's quite possible that the lender for the line of credit your neighbor applied for only looked at the Experian report. It's also quite possible that your neighbor could have gone to another lender and still have gotten the loan or line of credit they wanted.

Editted to add: my research also shows that Experian does not report how many is too many... nor does it report a formula...
 
From Myfico.com:

What’s in your FICO® score

FICO Scores are calculated from a lot of different credit data in your credit report. This data can be grouped into five categories as outlined below. The percentages reflect how important each of the categories is in determining your FICO score.

These percentages are based on the importance of the five categories for the general population. For particular groups - for example, people who have not been using credit long - the importance of these categories may be somewhat different.

Payment History (35%)
Account payment information on specific types of accounts (credit cards, retail accounts, installment loans, finance company accounts, mortgage, etc.)
Presence of adverse public records (bankruptcy, judgements, suits, liens, wage attachments, etc.), collection items, and/or delinquency (past due items)
Severity of delinquency (how long past due)
Amount past due on delinquent accounts or collection items
Time since (recency of) past due items (delinquency), adverse public records (if any), or collection items (if any)
Number of past due items on file
Number of accounts paid as agreed

Amounts Owed (30%)
Amount owing on accounts
Amount owing on specific types of accounts
Lack of a specific type of balance, in some cases
Number of accounts with balances
Proportion of credit lines used (proportion of balances to total credit limits on certain types of revolving accounts)
Proportion of installment loan amounts still owing (proportion of balance to original loan amount on certain types of installment loans)

Length of Credit History (15%)
Time since accounts opened
Time since accounts opened, by specific type of account
Time since account activity

New Credit (10%)
Number of recently opened accounts, and proportion of accounts that are recently opened, by type of account
Number of recent credit inquiries
Time since recent account opening(s), by type of account
Time since credit inquiry(s)
Re-establishment of positive credit history following past payment problems

Types of Credit Used (10%)
Number of (presence, prevalence, and recent information on) various types of accounts (credit cards, retail accounts, installment loans, mortgage, consumer finance accounts, etc.)
Please note that:

A FICO score takes into consideration all these categories of information, not just one or two.
No one piece of information or factor alone will determine your score.
The importance of any factor depends on the overall information in your credit report.
For some people, a given factor may be more important than for someone else with a different credit history. In addition, as the information in your credit report changes, so does the importance of any factor in determining your FICO score. Thus, it's impossible to say exactly how important any single factor is in determining your score - even the levels of importance shown here are for the general population, and will be different for different credit profiles. What's important is the mix of information, which varies from person to person, and for any one person over time.
Your FICO score only looks at information in your credit report.
However, lenders look at many things when making a credit decision including your income, how long you have worked at your present job and the kind of credit you are requesting.
Your score considers both positive and negative information in your credit report.
Late payments will lower your score, but establishing or re-establishing a good track record of making payments on time will raise your FICO credit score.
And if you can make head or tails out of that.... ;)
 


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