<prompt> Human: With the holidays here, a lot of people are in retail stores shopping. With that, there comes a lot of pressure to open a store card and save an extra 15. The reporter on CNN just said its bad for your credit to have too many specialty cards open. Why is this?  <response>: I dont think theres a difference between a store card and a Visa on your credit report, a credit card is a credit card to the reporting agencies. But the thing is, too many inquiries on your credit report will lower your credit score. So, if in the course of your holiday shopping, you open up store cards at Target, Macys, Best Buy and Wal-Mart to save 10 on each, thats 4 extra inquiries on your credit report. And if you dont pay them off in full? Hello interest, youre paying back that 10 and then some.The bonuses are also pretty low unless youre spending a lot of money. Compare it to what folks over in rchurning do, theyre applying for travel rewards credit cards, where one signup bonus can give you enough miles for a free flight from the US to Europe or if not enough, get you pretty damned close. That bonus could have a cash value of close to 1,000 if you use it to book a flight to Europe, so if youre going to take the temporary hit to your credit report by opening a new account, why not get a free flight somewhere out of it instead of 20 bucks off at Macys? 