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I've also heard before (anecdotal) that in general in the EU, people have far fewer credit cards. As someone with several chip+pin cards in the US, it can be a
by gascan 9y ago
I've also heard before (anecdotal) that in general in the EU, people have far fewer credit cards. As someone with several chip+pin cards in the US, it can be a bit of a chore ensuring they all have the same pin, and I wouldn't even want to try having five different cards with five different pins.
- JoeMalt 9y agoIt's definitely true that in the EU we tend to make most day-to-day purchases with debit cards.
- toomanybeersies 9y agoI used to live in New Zealand, and now in Australia, both countries with widespread adoption of chip and pin. I don't know a single person with more than one credit card. Why would you even need more than one credit card?
- ghaff 9y agoDifferent cards offer different benefits. At a minimum, I want to have one backup in case I leave one at a restaurant or something wonky happens with fraud systems. So, yeah, I have multiple cards although I mostly only use two of them.
- astura 9y agoDifferent cards offer different reward structures. I currently have sixteen (16) credit cards, but I'm certainly an outlier. For everyday purchases I use one card for restaurants and gas, another card for groceries and yet another for everything else. Then two other of my cards have rotating bonus categories, so I may use one of those for gas one quarter and for restaurants next quarter. And, at minimum, you should always have a backup, like a sibling comment points out. Especially when travelling, you don't want to be in the middle of nowhere trying to buy meal only to find out your card has fraudulent transactions and the new one has to be mailed to your house.
- dagw 9y agoI currently have sixteen (16) credit cards, but I'm certainly an outlier. Wow. I'm taking it you don't have to pay an annual fee for having a credit card in the US.
- ghaff 9y agoIt varies. I don't have anything like 16. But I have a couple of cards with specific reward benefits that I pay for plus a number of free ones for benefit and other reasons.
- astura 9y agoDepends entirely on the card! Annual fees can be either $0, as small as $30/year, or as high as $500/year (AMEX Platinum) and up. AMEX Centurion is invite only, it's for millionaire high spenders and has a $2,500/annual fee. Barclays Luxury Card is open to everyone and I believe it has a $900/year annual fee. Some cards waive the annual fee the first year and some don't. It's whatever the card issuer decides makes them the most money. Personally, I pay two annual fees and have a third one waived for now. Some of the cards I have I've downgraded to the less benefits no annual fee version of the card after collecting the annual fee version benefits for a year.
- gascan 9y agoMany, many cards have no annual fee. The ones that do, are usually worth it for the right customers- e.g. a travel card that comes with a lot of actually-valuable travel perks for the frequent flyer. Credit cards with an annual fee simply for the privilege of having a credit card, are mostly gone, chased out of the market much like the takeover of free checking.
- ci5er 9y agoNote - none of these are chip-and-PIN. 1) Every day IRL use 2) Backup 3) Restaurants. This is the only use-case where my card is out of my possession, and I try to isolate that. 4) MOST on-line purchases (Except for #5 below) 5) Online subscriptions. These are things like DO or AWS or month-to-month Jetbrains or Safari. This makes it easier to visually scan the statement for things that should not be there, or are wrong. (Billing mistakes are not infrequent). 6) Business expenses. This makes either submitting expenses and/or taxes easier, because it's all in one place.