Organizing a Giant Pile of Loyalty Cards

[monkeywrangler71]

Does anyone else have a huge number of loyalty cards that they have no idea where to ever find, what they are for, how many points they have or what you can even do with them?

My husband travels frequently with work and has a bunch of cards for airlines, gas stations, and different hotel chains. He keeps them in a pile at the bottom of his work bag. Some of them give him discounts/upgrades at check-in, but I know there are some that collect points - which will never get used if I don't take charge of them.

I'm trying to think of the best way to organize them, it needs to be compact, but easy to find what you are looking for. I used to have a business card folder years ago that would have been perfect but it's long gone, hopefully I can find something similar - not sure if I look in an office supply store or a wallet store? Then I need some way to track them at home - not so much the balances, but more a list of what we have and what they do. Actually, I'd like to have some of that information with the cards as well.

Any ideas? Pictures? Templates?

[spyzvixxen]

For my old bosses I would just keep an Excel spreadsheet (password protected, of course) of all their reward/loyalty programs - account #, login, password, phone # etc. Everything I needed was all in one place and accessible by them if I weren't available.

I do like the business card holder idea for the physical swipe cards/tags. But....I would still keep a spreadsheet as backup in case it grows legs and walks off. I can't tell you how many times I had to close & reopen new accounts because butterfingers would lose their purses/portfolios, etc.

Good luck!

[Libby]

MW - I just bout a card organizer last week for this exact purpose. I keep only the cards I use in the holder in my purse, the rest are bundled together with an elastic and stashed in my desk drawer.

I paid $7+tax and it holds min 16 cards and then some. I bought it at Bently. HTH

[mommy4ever]

I hole punch mine and put them on a key ring. Always together.

[Libby]

How hard is it to punch a hole through the plastic?

[mommy4ever]

Most weren't bad. A couple I just used a drill. Not as 'pretty', but it works. Then I smoothed with emery board.

[Libby]

Thx for the tip! I think I'll try that with the non essential cards and use a spare binder ring I have

[Luckybustert]

I have so many of them, I'd have to buy a REALLY big key ring to try that idea. I have tried some card organizers, but most aren't large enough. (Maybe I should just stop shopping so many different places? Loyalty points, etc., are nice, but in the long run it's really just another marketing ploy to get me to spend more money.) The ones I like best are the ones where I can just enter my phone number at the register and it gives me my discount or whatever....no need to carry the card.

[wuvsnoopy]

I have been putting them into hard plastic baseball card holders (my dh is a collector lol) and filing them in an old 3.5" computer disk box holder... they fit great and I can use the dividers as a little filing system....see... I knew someday I'd find a reason for saving them LOL.

[Saule]

Pretty much everywhere that I shop, if they issue a card at all, also issue a fob for a keychain. Even my library does. I find those very helpful, but I may have fewer than you do - I am pretty sure it's no more than 20.

For travel related cards - airline and hotel - I think that I have the numbers registered on Orbitz, so if I use that they are already in there. I know all the ones I use are in my company travel site.

I also have a PDA - the cheapest Palm there is, Zire 21 -and I have them all listed there with the passwords for the company websites. The PDA is backed up on my computer, so I feel pretty confident I will always have those numbers available. I bought the PDA after my purse was stolen and my address book. I really rely on it.