r/CreditCards: rules, karma requirements and posting culture

Who posts here

Students asking for a first card and people confused about utilization post every day, and a bot answers the common ones with wiki links. The discussion threads are a different register: transfer partners, product changes, issuer application rules and shorthand like SUB, AF, PC and 5/24 are used without explanation. Beginner questions stay up, but you will read the replies faster if you learn the abbreviations in the sidebar first.

• Rewards hobbyists comparing cards, points programs and transfer partners.
• People choosing their next card and posting their profile for recommendations.
• Students and first timers building credit and asking how the basics work.
• People with a problem: a denied application, a closed account, a dispute, a balance they want to move.
• Cardholders outside the US, in small numbers, with their own flair.

Karma and account requirements

What it takes to get a post through in r/CreditCards.

What you can post

What happens to a new post

Where the most recent posts ended up. Sample size: 400.

• Stayed up96%
• Removed by Reddit's filters2%
• Held by AutoModerator2%
• Removed by moderators<1%
• Deleted by the author<1%

Reddit counts a removal by the subreddit's own AutoModerator rules as a moderator removal, so that share is not all human. Held by AutoModerator means the post is waiting in the mod queue.

What happened when we posted here

We have posted here ourselves. This is how our own posts and comments fared.

Stayed up

99%

Removed by Reddit's filters

0%

Removed by moderators

1%

Period

October 2025 to July 2026

The rules, in the mods' words

1. 1

   Be respectful

   All users are expected to engage in respectful and civil communication, and refrain from harassing or insulting others. Any form of hate speech, including but not limited to racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or any derogatory language targeting an individual or group, is not allowed.

2. 2

   No referrals

   All users are prohibited from disseminating referral links through posts, comments, and private messages, or anything which the moderators may interpret as referral-seeking behavior.

3. 3

   No link shorteners

   All users are prohibited from using link shorteners, e.g., tinyurl, etc. Link shorteners refer to services or tools that condense long URLs into shorter, more manageable links. They can hinder transparency by concealing the actual destination of a link, therefore they pose potential risks to the community.

4. 4

   No self-promotional content

   All users are prohibited from posting any self-promotional content. Self-promotional content includes but is not limited to: * Articles/Journalist websites. * Interviews/Surveys (not including reddit polls). * Apps, Webpages, and other self-developed tools.

5. 5

   No irrelevant content or spam

   All users are prohibited from posting irrelevant content that does not pertain to the subject of credit or similar (i.e. debit) payment cards. This includes spam, which refers to unsolicited or repetitive content that is intended to promote or advertise products, services, or websites. Irrelevant content includes but is not limited to: - Bank Accounts (Checking, Savings, CD) - Loans (Auto, Home, Student, etc.) - Cryptocurrency

6. 6

   No promotion of illegal, fraudulent, or nefarious activities

   All users are prohibited from posting content that promotes illegal, fraudulent, or nefarious activities.

These are the rules as archived in January 2025. Rules change. Check the sidebar before you post.

The culture

r/CreditCards is a large and orderly subreddit, about 1.56 million members and around 61 posts a day. Everything is a text post, a typical one runs about 100 words, and the median post gets seven comments. Four in ten titles are questions.

The feed splits three ways by flair. About a third of posts are questions, about a third are open discussion, and about 30% are card recommendation requests. The recommendation posts follow a set template, and the subreddit tracks whether you used it: the flair itself says template used or template not used. A bot handles the repeat questions by posting cashback lists, the template and a short explainer on utilization, and regulars can summon those replies with a command.

What rises to the top is rarely a recommendation request. It is news that a rewards program is being cut, a story about an issuer closing accounts, a complaint about card surcharges, or an open question like which card people use for everything else. Under those, the standing arguments play out: whether premium cards with long lists of credits are worth their annual fees, cash back against points, and how much effort the whole hobby deserves.

What lands

• News of a devaluation or a change to a rewards program, with the details and what it means for cardholders.
• A firsthand data point: an approval, a denial, a shutdown, a retention offer, with the numbers.
• A shared consumer gripe, such as merchants adding a surcharge for paying by card.
• A practical tip that most people would not know, like a little-used way to redeem a benefit.
• An open question everyone can answer from their own wallet. These draw hundreds of comments.

What gets removed or ignored

• Referral links, or asking for them, in posts, comments or private messages.
• Self-promotion: articles, surveys, interview requests, apps and self-built tools.
• Shortened links.
• Off-topic money questions. The rules name bank accounts, loans and cryptocurrency as irrelevant.
• Anything that promotes fraud or other illegal activity. In our sample only about 4% of posts were removed or held in total, most by AutoModerator and Reddit's filters.

The unwritten rules

• Give your numbers. Score, income, spend by category and the cards you already hold. Answers without them are guesses, and people will say so.
• Search first. The subreddit asks you to, and common questions get a bot reply and not much else.
• Learn the shorthand in the sidebar. Replies are written in it.
• Small questions belong in the weekly lounge thread, not in a new post.
• Expect disagreement about premium cards. Saying a high annual fee card is worth it, or is not, will get pushback either way.

Self-promotion

The rule is as clear as these get: all users are prohibited from posting any self-promotional content, and the list that follows covers articles, surveys and interviews, and apps, web pages and other self-built tools. The sidebar wording suggests moderators can approve something in advance, but nothing describes how. Referral links are banned separately, down to private messages. If you work in this space, the only route is to take part as a cardholder: answer questions, share data points, and leave your product out.

How people write here

Typical post length

102 words

Typical title length

8 words

Titles phrased as a question

42%

Typical comment length

28 words

Comments that include a link

1%

Posts that carry a flair

100%

Top keywords

The words and phrases that show up far more often here than in other communities, from recent posts in r/CreditCards.

• card 318 posts
• credit 230 posts
• chase 150 posts
• credit card 154 posts
• cards 179 posts
• amex 74 posts
• travel 102 posts
• sapphire 56 posts
• account age 46 posts
• fico 49 posts
• credit cards 66 posts
• chase sapphire 46 posts
• next card 37 posts
• cash 100 posts
• sapphire preferred 42 posts
• chase freedom 39 posts
• oldest account 34 posts
• monthly spend 37 posts
• average monthly 37 posts
• points 82 posts
• dining groceries 31 posts
• current cards 37 posts
• oldest 49 posts
• citi 36 posts
• capital 65 posts
• fico score 34 posts
• dining 60 posts
• rewards 57 posts
• annual 62 posts
• gas travel 28 posts
• freedom 50 posts
• limit 72 posts
• annual fee 35 posts
• preferred 58 posts
• groceries 55 posts
• savor 32 posts
• score 68 posts
• spend 87 posts
• visa 48 posts
• csp 33 posts

Common questions