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In the US, I've even had bank representatives during a fraud alert call tell me I always need more than one card in case one is restricted in any way. (Presumab

by cnst 5y ago

In the US, I've even had bank representatives during a fraud alert call tell me I always need more than one card in case one is restricted in any way. (Presumably from different banks/issuers, too, but even a single issuer is also better than nothing.) What would you do if you need to rent a car, but your bank is down, and cannot authorise the payment? The cards I have actually pay me back in rewards for having them. Why would I NOT have as many as they'll give me? Most of my 20 cards come from just 3 issuers (Chase being the one who gave me the most cards), so, it's not even like it's even an issue from the management perspective, because each card is free (or even net negative cost) to own and operate, and it costs about the same amount of time to service them by the dozen as it would take to service just one of them.

krzyk 5y ago
> What would you do if you need to rent a car, but your bank is down, and cannot authorise the payment? This is end-of-the-world type scenario, you can prepare but should you go always prepared for it? > The cards I have actually pay me back in rewards for having them. Why would I NOT have as many as they'll give me? OK, that might be some countries specific, but in my country debit/credit (debits are way way more popular here) there are usually no rewards for paying and juggling cards to save 1-2% is not worth it - had once such card, after 6 months they resigned from such rewards and choosing card to use even on phone is a PITA instead of using the default one. And this was just an exception, usually you don't get rewards unless you have an expensive credit card that gives you mile rewards, but for that you really need to use that card everywhere to make it worth it - so again no need for other cards. This is EU-PL specific point of view.
- cnst 5y ago
  A single bank being down is definitely NOT the end of the world, provided you personally do have alternative accounts. I think a few years ago one UK bank had a downtime of a few days on their payment network. Wasn't that limited to a single bank? If you don't have to pay an annual fee for a credit card, why would you not at least have a few, to avoid such a scenario? Plus, bank-specific individual account lockouts are far more common worldwide, or customer service and unlock department might be having technical issues. None of this is the end of the world for anyone who has several credit cards.
  - krzyk 5y ago
    By writing "end of the world scenario" I mean that it happens so rarely that there is no need to prepare for that unless you are a prepper. I use a single bank for the last 15 years, there was no issue with it that would cause me to not be able to use my money. They usually have scheduler work during some weekend nights, and I don't remember any large scale issue besides that - for sure I didn't have a scenario where I was without money. For such scenario it is better to have some cash (which I do, but for other reasons - e.g. paying nanny or some workers that don't accept card payments).

by cnst 5y ago

krzyk 5y ago

> What would you do if you need to rent a car, but your bank is down, and cannot authorise the payment? This is end-of-the-world type scenario, you can prepare but should you go always prepared for it? > The cards I have actually pay me back in rewards for having them. Why would I NOT have as many as they'll give me? OK, that might be some countries specific, but in my country debit/credit (debits are way way more popular here) there are usually no rewards for paying and juggling cards to save 1-2% is not worth it - had once such card, after 6 months they resigned from such rewards and choosing card to use even on phone is a PITA instead of using the default one. And this was just an exception, usually you don't get rewards unless you have an expensive credit card that gives you mile rewards, but for that you really need to use that card everywhere to make it worth it - so again no need for other cards. This is EU-PL specific point of view.

cnst 5y ago
A single bank being down is definitely NOT the end of the world, provided you personally do have alternative accounts. I think a few years ago one UK bank had a downtime of a few days on their payment network. Wasn't that limited to a single bank? If you don't have to pay an annual fee for a credit card, why would you not at least have a few, to avoid such a scenario? Plus, bank-specific individual account lockouts are far more common worldwide, or customer service and unlock department might be having technical issues. None of this is the end of the world for anyone who has several credit cards.
- krzyk 5y ago
  By writing "end of the world scenario" I mean that it happens so rarely that there is no need to prepare for that unless you are a prepper. I use a single bank for the last 15 years, there was no issue with it that would cause me to not be able to use my money. They usually have scheduler work during some weekend nights, and I don't remember any large scale issue besides that - for sure I didn't have a scenario where I was without money. For such scenario it is better to have some cash (which I do, but for other reasons - e.g. paying nanny or some workers that don't accept card payments).