A very Merry Christmas from our family to yours!
And if you celebrate a different winter holiday (or none at all!), I hope you’ll find some happiness from this simple flowchart
🙂
My travel hacking Christmas present
On Christmas Day, I thought I would share one of my favorite travel hacking Christmas presents from a few years ago .One problem that I had been having is keeping track of all my different credit cards. Like many of you I suppose, I have… a “few” cards. Currently they just all sit in a drawer in my house, not organized at all. I even “lost” one of my Bank of America Alaska cards and had to call to get a new one (but then I found it anyways)
So Santa brought me a binder to store all my cards!
Not the real numbers or expiration dates 🙂
(I did have to remind my daughter when she was making me the cover to not use the REAL credit card numbers and expiration dates :-D). I also enjoy the rendition of the “northern lights” version of the Alaska Airlines card.
I had seen this as an idea from a different travel hacker (can’t remember who). It combines a regular binder (this one) with trading card inserts (these ones) to hold different cards, not to mention creative usage of leftover wrapping paper to block out the actual CC numbers 🙂
Back when I was an “extreme” couponer, I had a similar setup, which was great except for the times I kept forgetting it in my shopping cart and leaving it at stores! With this credit card binder, I am imagining just leaving it at home and only taking cards in and out as needed to fulfill different promotions. I am not sure exactly how I will organize the different sheets – probably a page for each brand and then keeping primary and authorized user cards in the same sleeve? Does that make sense or might there be another way to do it?
Do any of you use something like this or something completely different to keep track of your different cards? I’d love to hear your strategy for keeping track of different cards in the comments.
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
This is very cute. Great that your kids support your habit!
I use an index card file box (sideways, with the cards standing on end, because I have so many). I have a section for cards with auto billpays (meaning I can ignore), a section for Amex cards (for easy access for Amex offers), a section for cards I need to cancel, and the biggest section for cards to use occasionally (when I use a card, I move it to the back of the pile, rotating through them for small purchases every six months or so to keep them active). When I finish meeting spend on a card, I put it in the appropriate section and it just becomes another card in my repertoire (unless it is one of the few cards that I keep in my wallet for everyday spend).
I have a “high tech” way of keeping cards together. It’s called rubber bands.
My daughter also bought me a card holder for Christmas. Very useful.
With a sharpie I number cards on the face 1,2,3 etc. if they are the same . I only carry the ones I intend to use that day .
I use a binder in exactly the way you mentioned. I keep the authorized user in the same sleeve and pull cards in and out as needed. I have a separate notebook I use to keep track of all the other importants dates and notes for each card.
I have the same set-up as I too just used to just stack them up in a drawer with a rubber band. I currently have them organized by bank (login account). I also have sections for cards that I plan to cancel before renewal date. For example, I have all the credit cards I got in my April ’15 App-o-Rama, and plan to cancel, on one page so they are easy to find come March of 2016.
Cute! My 7 year old collects hotel keys so we did something similar last year for Christmas for him. It was a hit.
Nice! One of my sons collects hotel PENS, and we got him a pen organizer for Christmas this year!
A zip lock bad in my sock draw !
Ha !
I think you might’ve seen this on Vinh’s (milesperday) site! I have little credit card books that I bought from Aliexpress. Each book holds 24 cards and is a different color, and has tabs.
I got a 2×2 card binder recently to organize my cards and love it! It’s smaller than the 3×3 which makes it easier to carry or store.
Right now, I put all the cards for the same person together, alphabetically by bank name (e.g. AMEX, Barclay, BOA, Chase, Citi, Discover). I debated whether to place additional cardholders behind the account holder but decided I need easier access to the same person’s cards – like when I want to take all my AMEX cards in-store to purchase AMEX offer deals.
I have all the card information in a spreadsheet so I don’t need the cards unless I want it in my wallet.
Yeah I think my big problem now with the 3×3 slots is that sometimes the cards fall out of the slots when I’m moving the binder. Definitely agree that I don’t need the cards unless they need to go in my wallet
I heard some people use plastic baseball card sleeves that each hold 9 cards and go in a binder notebook. I found some on Amazon for $6.50 for 27 of the 9 card page sleeves.
A bigger problem for me is organizing my notes about each card. I am not skilled at using spreadsheets but I hear that is the best way to organize the card info. Is there a good spreadsheet for this already set up with all the headings needed or one that I could use as a model?
I have a spreadsheet I’m happy to share if there’s a way….
“I had seen this as an idea from a different travel hacker” — I thought it might have been me … but then I saw that the date was from my pre-hacking days 😀 It’s exactly what I use, though!
Nice article. My son gave me a card holder too. I was happy.
My daughter made me one a couple years ago. Pages made for business cards hold credit cards better than the ones made for baseball cards though.