Paying extra for a service like cc is just accepted in the US but not so common elsewhere. So even slight differences in fees will have merchants refusing to use the more expensive one even at the cost of bothering customers.

Wait... You have 9 credit cards? Why? How? Isn't that a maintenance burden keeping track of all of them? I've never ever had more than 2 at the same time and it was because I was transitioning from one bank to another...

Sign up bonuses and benefits can net you a few thousand dollars. With a password manager and push alerts and autopay, it’s very little work to manage, plus you’re not liable anyway if you dispute in a timely manner.

Sign up bonuses are good but cards cost about $70 a year typically. Wouldn’t it be better to hold two and change it up every year?

Generally, annual fee cards have an equivalent free tier card. You should be able to just call the credit company and ask to downgrade to the free tier (usually after a year or two). They will usually honor this request. This conversion also doesn't affect your credit since it preserves your limit, balance, etc. YMMV but this has been my experience.

You can downgrade to the free card or just cancel it.

I have maybe 3 credit cards I use regularly. Well, really only 2, but I carry 3. One is my everyday card, the other one is Amazon-specific so I rarely swipe it. My wife has a couple as well (different accounts, we haven't bothered to combine yet). I've also got debit cards from my bank account, a debit card for our joint bank account, and a debit card for one of my brokerage accounts.

And of course my wife has debit cards for her account and another card for our joint account. That's just off the top of my head. I guess that's 9-ish?

They're not all credit cards, but they all have logos.. and, as it turns out, all Visa, apparently. The obvious question is "why so many", and the answer would be "situations like this", except in this case, it didn't help.

I guess I could take them out of my wallet and just leave them at home, but... why? A year back I was going to Germany; my primary credit card was deactivated on my flight there due to fraudulent use at a Home Depot, while I was on the plane. A second card stopped working, so I was down to my last card, which I really needed to work for a many-thousand-dollar rental car hold.

Called all the banks; the first card was shipped to my house in the US to arrive within 10 days (thanks!), second card was NOT inactive, apparently the merchant terminal was just screwing something up. It worked just fine. But I was glad to have the third!

As a sidenote, it's cool to be on a call with a credit card company, and before you're even off the phone, Apple Wallet pings you with a notification that your new card is active. But not everyone takes NFC. And in general, Germany's weird about accepting foreign cards, so it's nice to have options.