Should a person have more than one credit card. The answer to this question is yes and no! It will depend on how you are going to use them and if they are for a particular purpose.
A simple reason is because there are a few places that do not accept all cards. This is the most common reason why someone would want a Visa and a Mastercard at the same time. Another common reason is one is for business and another for personal use.
I have two credit cards one for my small home base business and one for personal purchases. I use a Discover business card, which is good for all kinds of purchases and points. For me these two cards work well together and I am assured that I can use them anywhere. I am thinking though I will use only one to keep it easier to budget.
A friend of mine has a home based business as a computer analyst and needs to travel frequently, sometimes over long distances. He uses two types of personal credit cards and really cleans up on his rewards. What he does is he uses his chase freedom rewards card for all personal items and gas purchases so he can reduce expenses and then he uses a airline rewards card which is a blue sky from American Express when he travels far.
He will then use the travel points for vacationing with his family. This works very well and he gets a great deal of rewards out of it. These are a few of the benefits to having two credit cards.
An accountant friend of mine has two credit cards for keeping all his monthly purchases in order. One card his and another his for his wife's purchases. They sit down together at the end of every month and go over each others statements to see where they could have saved money. For this to work you really should have two incomes to make it work properly. You should also be collecting different rewards to maximize your benefits.
If you are single or married and still want to use this type of financing to budget, you can still have two cards. This type of accounting does take more dedication on your part but it does work. You would use one for all purchases and keep another just for emergencies or when you feel you might have to carry a balance.
Drawbacks of using more than one card
If you miss the payment on one it will affect your credit on all your accounts because all credit companies report to the same credit reporting agencies. This can lower your score and increase your interest on all your accounts, so you need to be very careful. In the long run it may cost you more money than any benefit you would get from any of the rewards.
Having more than one card makes it easier to mix things up and create account problems for your account if you use your business credit card for personal purchases. The IRS may take a second look at your books if you do mess up and they see it.
Another problem that is becoming more frequent and alarming is identity theft. People do this by stealing the information from either your debit card or credit card or both. Thieves are getting very good and finding new ways to do this. One of the more popular ways is by stealing pin pads and replacing them with blue chip technology that then gathers all your financial information. It would be a good idea to signup with one of the credit monitoring services, if you have more than one card.
If this is your first credit card, I would not apply for two right away. Wait until you have established a good credit rating and have a 0 balance owing. Then carefully review other offers that would compliment your first card.
The rewards that you would want are the ones that are not offered with your current credit card. They should compliment each other and match your shopping habits. By this I mean don't apply for two that offer the same rewards. One should be a shopping rewards card that also covers gas purchases and the other should match your business or travel situations. Really though you should find all of the above benefits offered to you with any of the the lowest rate credit cards.
In case you were wondering I also have 2 debit cards from different banks. One account only holds a hundred dollars and this is just used in case one bank has it's debit machine down and I don"t have any cash with me. I have been caught in this situation a couple of times.