Useful tips to manage all your credit cards

Globally, we are moving towards a cashless society. This change leaves a paper trail after all transactions, which prevents fraud and money laundering. Furthermore, going cashless eases financial difficulties while traveling abroad. This introduces the use of credit cards. Each credit card carries its own cashback or reward schemes that give users a more enjoyable experience. However, owning multiple requires organisation, thought and planning. Therefore, here are some useful tips that should help you with managing multiple credit cards! 1. Know each card’s purposer One card alone may not be sufficient to maximize your benefits, because differing cards give rewards in differing areas. Therefore, the best way forward would be to have cards that provide benefits in areas that you spend in. For example, an avid driver should consider a Citi Shell Card, which would give up to 5% shell fuel rebates, instead of a Citi Cash Back Card, which gives a 6% rebate on supermarket purchases. Thus, knowing the purpose of each card you have will help maximise the benefits. 2. Check your credit scorer Creditors would see a person with a low credit score as a risk-taker, and would likely not want to give more credit to the user. Thus, while having multiple credit cards, it is important to ensure we use each card substantially. 3. Payment due datesr Paying on time, and in full, is important. A late payment can result in the payment of interest, which outweighs the benefits received. Instead of earning cashback, we would be spending the amount retained to pay off the interest. Therefore, it is always important to be sharp with payments to avoid losing out on potential additional credit. 4. Check credit card activity frequentlyr Checking the activity of credit cards and making sure outstanding bills add up, ensures we only pay the amount we owe. One way would be to retain receipts from our purchases and match it to a consolidated statement. This decreases the chances of credit scams. 5. Keeping the cards activer A dormant credit card would affect the overall unutilised credit of all your cards. This ends up affecting your credit score. Furthermore, we pay less attention to dormant cards, thus are more likely to become targets for fraud and scams. 6. Don’t use all the cards at oncer Having all the benefits can entice us to use all our cards at once. This may cause us to buy things that are not needed. Therefore, we should categorise our cards and bring only those that we will need, to avoid spending more. A good way to do this is by using the online service WalletWalk which can help us to differentiate best credit cards in Philippines and help reduce to only need cards. 7. Check credit card costsr The annual fee or interest charges may change. Therefore, it is important to review all the cards to be certain that they are worth the amount spent, and not too costly to maintain.