Any negative for having too many CCs open?

Open? No. The act of opening? Yes, but temporary. And you don't want to open a new line shortly before say, a car or home loan application.

Then from there its just an issuer specific decision if they want to extend you more credit, which has really nothing to do with your score at that point.

For example, I have 3 Chase Personal cards and 2 Chase business cards (and something like 10 credit cards total). For me to get a 6th card, I'll probably have to cancel one and replace it with whatever I'm getting, but another bank like Citi would probably approve me for whatever I wanted since I have none with them.

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We won't be opening a new line for about 6-8 months when we buy a new house. No cars for at least a year. I only have 3 cards, one being issued from my company so I'm not sure if that counts as one of mine despite having my name on it (I hope it doesn't b/c my manager approved my expense report late twice which caused late payments). Anywho...I'm an approved user on a 4th card, but that is one that my parents opened when I was born so I don't touch it. Looking to cash in on some of the cash back and rewards deals going on by signing up for 1 or 2

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Check your credit report to verify that an 'authorized user' account isn't affecting you.

If you're buying a home in 6-8 months, I wouldn't open up anything new. It's kind of near-sighted in terms of benefits (cash back rewards) and probably would have a negative effect on your score for the home purchase.

If you're not looking at buying in the next 18 months, go ahead and open up several or a few accounts. Credit scores indicate the ability to manage credit. Having 12 months active/used with nothing negative should help your score.

For the record, the only time you will see a significant impact on your credit report for too many open accounts is when you have an extremely high credit score and virtually nothing else is left to pull it down. Too many accounts open being the single most influential factor on your score is a sign that you are managing credit very well and the score should mirror that.

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one being issued from my company so I'm not sure if that counts as one of mine despite having my name on it (I hope it doesn't b/c my manager approved my expense report late twice which caused late payments).

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This is on them not you.

Tots:

The ideal amount of credit cards to have open is 3. Anything more than that you take a hit. You want your balances to be no more than 60% of the limits.

If your credit is strong, IE multiple car loans, mortgage history, revolving history, opening a credit card line before a mortgage app isn't a huge deal, however if you do not have a lot of history on your bureau, I would advise against it.

Take this from someone who has been trained by Equifax and is in the field.

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Gotta disagree strongly. There is nothing wrong with having more accounts open if they are managed well. You do not take a hit to your score for having more than three credit cards. That is ludicrous.

You want your utilization at 20% or less. 60% is way too high and has an adverse affect on your score and your credit worthiness

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Cosigned.
20% utilization is ideal.
New accounts hurt... but eventually they show the ability to manage credit. The key is getting to the eventually without any hiccups.

I've seen 840 credit scores with the largest negative factor on the credit being too many open accounts.
I repeat... this is a good thing (when the worst thing a credit agency can say about you is too many open accounts).

Well I'm calling BS on both.

You do take a small hit with more than 3 cards opened. Whether you manage them well or not is a different story. Having a lot of available credit to tap into can show risk to a lender.

Your score will be the same whether you have 20% or 60% balance/limit ratio, however 60% is the threshold.

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Your score will be the same whether you have 20% or 60% balance/limit ratio, however 60% is the threshold.

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Can you at least tell us where you're getting this from? Besides "expertise"...
Threshold is closer to 30% than 60%

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Your score will be the same whether you have 20% or 60% balance/limit ratio, however 60% is the threshold.

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I was banking a good bit on a 0% teaser rate that brought my utilization to 45% when I paid that off and got a increase in my line of credit, it brought my utilization to 23%

Score went up 25 points.

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The ideal amount of credit cards to have open is 3. Anything more than that you take a hit. You want your balances to be no more than 60% of the limits.

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This is sooooo wrong. Please stop spewing this around.

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Take this from someone who has been trained by Equifax and is in the field.

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Either a) their training is wrong b) you didn't pay attention during training or c) you're lying.

Personally, I keep around 20% at a maximum.

Keep it sub 35% according to Equifax

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Are my balances too high relative to my total available credit limit?
Creditors prefer to see a lower ratio of how much debt you’re carrying compared with how much available credit you have on a particular account. Ideally, you’ll use less than 35% of the total credit limit on any particular account. For example, if your credit card has a maximum credit limit of $1,000, carrying a balance above $350 on that card could negatively affect your credit score.

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bubbz

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to the OP, take 5 mins and do some research, and you will quickly see that everything this guy said is incorrect.

fwiw i currently have 5 cards and a 800+ FICO.