A single credit card or more than one — What’s the smarter choice?

By Sabrina Karl

Perhaps you’ve heard about “credit card maximizers”, the folks who hold a dozen or more different cards to squeeze out the maximum rewards. At the other end are cardholders who have owned a single card for decades.

 

Which is the smarter strategy? As with many things, the best choice for most folks lies somewhere in between, with your own money management personality being the biggest determinant of the most beneficial approach for you.

 

At the extremes, it’s easy to see the pluses and minuses. Holding a single card makes managing payments and tracking expenses exceptionally simple. You also never have to choose which card to use.

 

But by holding more than one card, you can significantly boost how much you recoup from your spending. For instance, you could open a card that pays an attractive cash back rate on gasoline purchases and use it only for that. Other common categories that can be worth a new card are Amazon or Target purchases, dining out, or groceries.

 

Of course, going to extremes and continually opening additional cards to score new and better rewards can in theory allow you to earn as much as possible on every penny you spend. But it requires a lot more work to manage a stable of cards, their payments, and your decisions on which card to use.

 

On top of this, frequently applying for new cards will hurt your credit score, as will any missed payments because you can’t keep track of everything.

 

For some personalities, a single card is most appealing. Just be sure to occasionally review if you’re getting rewards well-suited to you. But for many spenders, the sweet spot is to hold a few different cards, with certain ones dedicated to specific easy-to-remember purchases, bringing more rewards to your bottom line.

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