Can You Have Two Credit Cards From The Same Bank?

Can You Have Two Credit Cards From The Same Bank?

Can You Have Two Credit Cards From The Same Bank? The answer is that you can have two or more credit cards (2) from the same bank (1). This is convenient for you when these cards from the same bank enable different advantages (one card offers low APR (4) and the other offers hotel rewards or other advantages (3)) for the cardholder (5).

In this article, I will study these pros and cons so you can understand if having two credit cards from the same bank is convenient for YOU and your financial requirements.

The best situation to have two credit cards from the same bank is when the two credit cards do not offer the same features and attributes and complement each other to you offering you empowerment as a cardholder.

It is especially a good idea if both cards do not have an annual fee, if they do not have a monthly maintenance fee either, if they do not have APR for this first year as with MidFirst, and if they complement their features quite well. These complementary attributes are that one enjoys a very low annual percentage rate and the other one is included in a rewards program that allows you to benefit from discounts, cashback, and points transfer to hotel chains and major airlines. Two credit cards with the same bank but more advantages to enjoy.

Before anything, this bank or credit card issuer perform an approval on your request for a second credit card with them. if you meet a determined qualification criterion. They will check that you have a low debt-to-income ratio so to confirm that you have the ability to pay back easily the balance of the new credit card and do not pose a risk.

Now let’s study the pros and cons to see if for you it is convenient to have a second credit card from the same bank.

Advantages Of Having A Second Credit Card With The Same Bank

With disregard of who issues your new credit card, the utilization of a plethora of lines of credit can enhance your credit score if you perform the payment for each of these cards completely and you do not max out your cards this means you do not reach exactly the limit of the card.

This applies when you have a new credit card with the same institution or when you have a second credit card in your portfolio but with another credit card issuer or bank.

• Enjoying lower APRs

A typical advantage we see is that you can have your first credit card with 0% APR during the first 12 billing cycles and then obtain a second credit card after this year to have again ask your percent APR for the second credit card and then showing another rear without any annual percentage right.

• Have Two Cards With Different Features

Another advantage is for someone with a rewards card that is a frequent traveler a person who performs many qualifying purchases for rewards. So, this cardholder wants a second card from the same institution in case that he loses the credit card or the credit card is blocked in a machine or it has to be blocked because of the suspicion of fraudulent charge or some kind of fraudulent utilization.

As obtaining a replacement card while you are traveling abroad is difficult we can say it is impossible because normally these cards are sent by mail within the United States having a second card as replacement card to be used only in these situations is an interesting option because obtaining this replacement is difficult when you are traveling overseas. Unluckily, as we will explain below, it is possible that in cases of suspicion of identity theft, the bank or credit card issuer blocks both products of your account.

A typical case is that you need to obtain a second credit card with the same bank because the new card has different features and attributes typically one is for rewards and the other is not. Another advantage is when you want to switch to a different type of card because you found out that another product in the same institution is more feasible for you to fulfill your requirements.

This happens in the case that you have, to put an example, a Visa Platinum in DCU and you find out that you perform many qualifying purchases during the year but you do not have any rewards or cashback program in your current product.

Here you will be willing to request the DCU Visa Platinum Rewards that has a higher APR, abut three percent more, but you enjoy the cashback and rewards program that is probably something more suitable for your requirements. In this case, having this new credit card for these qualifying purchases is a good idea.

The same consideration is valid if you have a MidFirst Visa Platinum and you move to obtain also a MidFirst Visa Rewards.

• Have A Much Better Credit Card

In this case, you will be actually dismissing your previous card, and the new one will be issued for you with better conditions and more advantages. The typical situation here is when you have built up your credit score and improved your creditworthiness and you feel the necessity of moving from a secured card to an unsecured product with lower APRs, lower fees, and even possibly the advantage of a suitable rewards program embedded.

In First Choice, here you have the possibility to move from the MasterCard Classic that has no rewards to a MasterCard Gold from First Choice if you are more premium in your credit score. Thus, in this case, you might want to have the MasterCard Gold and keep the MasterCard classic. Even better anyway, you can retain the MasterCard gold and ditch the MasterCard Classic because you are paying about 6% more APR and not even enjoying rewards or cashbacks.

• You Are Not Forced To Use Both Cards

Having a second credit card in the same institution does not force you to be using both. You can just have them and not use them all the time. So, having two credit cards in the same bank it does not mean that you’re going to spend more necessarily.

This is a reinforced advantage when the credit cards have no annual or monthly fees. Just keep both and use them when you have a specific usage required.

• More Age In The Same Account

If you open a new credit card with the same institution you continue with that bank. And the age of the accounts is very important for the score if you can prove that you have had an account with the same institution for many years and you did not incur in penalties. Well, this is good for your credit score: You have an aged relation with a bank.

It is a real frustration we knew want to utilize a certain product just like an airline or cell phone carrier or a hotel of a specific chain, and with your current credit card, you do not obtain any kind of benefit. In these cases, we see that having a specific card that satisfies your frequent purchases of products or services that are eligible for these rewards is really an interesting option provided, moreover, that you do not have a monthly maintenance fee or an annual fee to pay for these cards.

Drawbacks of Having More Than One Credit Card With The Same Bank

• Multiplication of the effect of penalties due to the cross-default effect

Penalties may affect both credit cards. Sometimes if you have a penalty in one card it may affect the second card in the same institution. Why does this happen? Because when you acquire this credit you are signing a new contract that has cross-default clauses.

This means that the execution of this new contract may affect the execution of a previous contract. Therefore, if you have a penalty in one card it may affect the second card too, even if they are regulated in different contracts. 

It is riskier for you. What is this penalty?  More than 60 days of delinquency in the credit card payment. This procedure is allowed by federal law and will affect you at the account level. It can affect credit cards, but also loans.

• Limitation in the eligibility to obtain a bonus for a new sign up

When you read and signed the contract for the first credit card in this current credit institution you probably had the benefit of a signup bonus. This is because you were coming from another institution. Therefore, the bank or credit institution, in order to convince you to become their customer offered you a sign-up bonus.

Banks and credit institutions or credit card issuers will not likely be offering you a sign-up bonus for the second credit card. This depends on the negotiation of the contract but in general, these contracts are not negotiated by the parties. You just only can accept them or reject them.

• The management of different credit cards and your own available budget 

Naturally, when you have more multiple cards you still have the same budget so you will have to struggle probably with your current credit card payments. In this situation, you will have to pay attention to how much you are spending and not spend more than what you actually can spend. This is quite obvious but let me point it as a disadvantage.

• Cardholders With Low Creditworthiness

Now let’s suppose that you are a different kind of credit card Holder and you have a different level of creditworthiness. If you are a credit card holder profile that maxes out the credit card every month and incurred in diverse penalties due to missing his payments, maybe a second card will represent a much higher annual percentage rate (APR) or that the credit on the first card will be split to be used for your second card, so you will not be favored by having more credit in this way. A second card will be an additional burden for you.

You need to think strategically before you apply for a second credit card in the same bank or in another bank. This is because when we submit a formal application for a new credit card an inquiry into your credit history is performed. This hit may eliminate algorithmically some points from your credit score. In this case, and to avoid this situation you should only introduce a formal application for a second credit card after you understand that your possibilities of becoming approved are clear and decisive

For this goal, it is a good idea to do first a request of information about your eligibility and obtain some feedback from the bank or the credit card issuer, before going forward with this formal application.  

What I have seen in practice is that when you open a new credit card, in that moment your credit score drops. Nevertheless, this happens for just a little while.

You start the utilization of the second credit card, you perform the related payments on time avoiding penalties, and you do not max out any of your cards.

 Now you have two credit cards that you are using wisely, and you will see your credit score bounce again back fairly rapidly.

• Balance Transfers Facilities Not Provided

A bank will normally offer you the advantage to have balance transfer possibilities to promote their product to you as a new customer. With this advantage, they expect to convince you to move your account or more precisely your balance from a different competitor bank.

In this case, however, as you will be in the same bank, probably the credit institution will not offer you this balance transfer option as you will be staying in the same bank.

• Identity Theft Suspicion Protocols

If the bank for any reason has a suspicion of identity theft, they can block all the products in your account until they investigate or until you confirm your identity. You will also confirm that the purchases that arose the suspicion and triggered the protocol are fine and recognized as yours.

In this case, having a second credit card with the same bank does not help. The bank in a security protocol and in a reasonable suspicion of identity theft will block temporarily all the products in your account that in this case will be your two credit cards with them.

Can You Have Two Credit Cards From The Same Bank? Examples of advantageous combinations of two credit cards with the same bank.

Chase Ultimate Rewards Program

With the Chase, you have the Chase Ultimate Rewards Program. In this program, you are enabled to obtain rewards from a mosaic of credit cards within them.

The Chase Freedom card has no annual fee. It provides you 5 points for each dollar you spend on your first $1.500 each quarter on eligible purchases. Likewise, you will also obtain a point per additional dollar spent on other purchases.

And this product can be combined with the Ultimate Rewards from the Chase Sapphire Preferred.

This card that you can have along with the Chase Freedom card we mentioned earlier provides you the double of points in some specific purchases. However, this product has an almost $100 fee that you must pay yearly. Nevertheless, if you are a cardholder that is usually involved in these specific eligible purchases you will obtain a good benefit if you combine the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Chase Freedom.

Why is this advantage? Why is it better to combine the Chase Freedom and the Chase Sapphire Preferred?  The answer is because you can execute a transfer of these points to miles with eligible airlines and hotels.

As you see, this is an example of a good combination of two credit cards. You will be paying $95 per year but instead, you will take advantage of all those qualifying purchases that you do with the Chase Freedom and the Chase Sapphire Preferred because you will transfer these points to miles in nine major airlines and hotel chains.

Citibank ThankYou Rewards

Second example. This is another example of another combination of two credit cards with the same bank that can be an advantage for you. We are talking about the Citi ThankYou rewards.

The Citibank ThankYou program looks like the Chase Ultimate Rewards Program that we discussed before. You will obtain points from different credit cards from Citibank and you will be transferring the points earned to hotel programs or different airlines in the United States.

Likewise, you may utilize these earned points to book inside the Citibank environment that offers you double points in restaurants and events. Furthermore, it also offers you a point per each dollar you spend in other venues. It has no monthly maintenance fee and no fee in the whole year, so this means no annual fee at all. You do not lose anything for having both.

Now you can complement this card the Citibank ThankYou Premier card.

Therefore, you will have two Citibank cards: the Citibank ThankYou and this other credit card offered by the same institution, by the same bank, that is their Citi ThankYou Premier card.

These two credit cards complement very well together because the Citibank ThankYou  Premier card will allow you to utilize your points redeeming them very easily through the Citibank travel agency environment that is called ThankYou Travel Center.

Likewise, you may perform a transfer of these achieved points to many airlines, about 15, in the form of miles. Additionally, you can transfer these points to hotel programs such as The Hilton Honors.

This Citi example is a good example of combining two cards two credit cards with the same bank that is Citi.

MidFirst: Visa Platinum and Visa Platinum Rewards

Another good example is with MidFirst. In MidFirst you have for example the Visa Platinum that has 12 billing cycles with no APR, so 0% APR. Then after this first year, the annual percentage rate will be defined by your creditworthiness. This Visa Platinum may have about 12% of APR for the credit card holder after this first year.

After that, you can have another product that MidFirst offers that is the MidFirst Visa Rewards and with this card, you also have a zero percent annual percentage rate for the first year.

This means that in MidFirst you will have two credit cards with different features and attributes, both in the same bank.

You can have the Visa Platinum that offers you a very low APR and no rewards and second, your second card, that will be the Visa Rewards. The latter offers you a complete rewards program from Visa.

In this case, when you have a qualifying purchase to perform you will utilize the MidFirst Visa Rewards, and when instead you only have a typical non-qualifying purchase you will use the MidFirst Visa Platinum that has a lower APR.

Can You Have Two Credit Cards From The Same Bank? DCU Visa Platinum And DCU Visa Platinum: Two Cards That Complement Well

Another example is in the DCU and is quite similar to the aforementioned MidFirst case.

In DCU you have a DCU Visa Platinum that enjoys a 10% APR. Also, in DCU, you have another Visa product that is the Visa Platinum Rewards. This card has almost a 3% more APR because this has 12.75% APR that is a bit higher than the Visa Platinum but has the cashback and rewards program from Visa instead.

So DCU is another credit card issuer where you will develop a long-term relationship and history in your account.

You will have there the DCU Visa Platinum for the non-eligible purchases where you have the possibility to pay a lower APR and the DCU Visa Platinum Rewards that despite having a little bit higher APR you have all the cashback and rewards program from Visa that is very useful in those cardholder profiles that perform frequent qualifying purchases.

For example, they travel frequently, or they go frequently to hotels, as most major hotels in the United States have joined these rewards programs quite commonly.

Related Articles

Related to this topic, there are some interesting reviews of credit cards and products related to debit cards and prepaid cards that I would like to suggest you read. I have kept the list short with some featured articles: Mid America credit cards, DCU credit cards, Midfirst cards, First Choice credit cards, the Walmart Rewards Card, the Ace Elite Visa Prepaid, the Venmo Debit Card, and the Relax Mastercard.

Furthermore, the discussion about the possibility of having two or more credit cards from the same bank.