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What were your credit card mistakes and regrets of 2025?

Mistakes
1. Applied for BOB premier credit card and closed it in few weeks
2. Applied for PNB credit card and it got rejected because I didn't enter my father's full name where they asked for name. I immediately regretted my decision of applying the card and waste of my time.
 
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I’d been living in a cave for years with just my ICICI Platinum and Coral LTF cards. I used to spend around 9 lakhs a year and still never earned any meaningful rewards or cashback. Then one day I met an old friend who casually mentioned how much cashback he was earning and all the lounge benefits he was using. I wasn’t too bothered about lounges, but the cashback part definitely hit me.
So I did some research and found two cards that actually fit my lifestyle — Amazon Pay and SBI Cashback. Applied for Apay and got it instantly, and within a few days got SBI CB too with a solid credit limit.
And here’s the crazy part: in just three months, I earned more cashback than what I used to get in an entire year earlier. That got me a little too excited, and I started applying for cards left and right. As expected, my CIBIL took a nice punch. Now I’m sitting with six cards, all taken within a short span, and yeah… I’m officially overleveraged.
So I’ve decided to pump the brakes for now.
 
Regret :- Applied for some cards just because of FOMO.

Multiple unnecssary cibil hits due to this.

Not gonna apply more than 1-2 cards in 2026. And, gonna close some existing cards next year before renewal.
 
While there were so many mistakes and regrets all throughout this year, there are some small good things happening in December to end this year on a good positive note.

Accor - status tier upgrade to Silver via fastrack
Axis Atlas - status tier upgrade to Gold, & add-on approval

Air India Express - ststus tier upgrade in progress
HDFC - new card approval in progress

So many small small good things happening this month. This year was a mix of good and bad things, that too many difficulties in the last 2-3 months. But December has been kind. A little more good things will help end this year in a very positive note.
 
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Some things that I kept on hold this year and not decided yet:
1. Whether to open Axis burgundy salary account or not. Haven't entered Axis ecosystem yet. The only relationship is Atlas as of now.
2. Should I take HSBC TravelOne or not? With the offers going on this month, it is essentially FYF, but not yet decided whether to take it or not.
3. What to do with ICICI salary account? It is a 0MAB salary account, but I am not using it actively. Either ICICI will make it dormant or convert to some other account type with minimum balance requirement. Not acted on it yet.

Some things that I am sure of:
1. I am not getting any super premium cards like M4B, Infinia, EPM, & Premier. Do not see it happening in 2026 as well. Not eligible with current income.
2. I am going to continue HDFC preferred salary account. Burned my fingers once with HSBC, so I may not go back (unless I am eligible for Premier)
3. I will get Regalia Gold sometime this year or early next year. Pushing HDFC for this.
3. My core cards continue to be Atlas, Plat Travel, Marriott and Regalia Gold. To relook at it when a devaluation or change in benefits happens.
 
As we come near to the end of this year, let us share our financial and credit card mistakes and regrets of 2025.

Let us all agree the fact that everyone makes mistakes and no one is perfect.
Even the smartest user may make some silly mistake - whether it be using the wrong card, applying for a card in FOMO and later regretting or closing it, sharing your card details with someone, falling prey for a scam, withdrawing cash from ATM machine using credit card, missing bill payment, cibil score impacting due to late payments, and what not.
There could also be some regrets like not applying for a wanted card, missing milstone rewards, etc.
So let us shre our mistake stories. It's not for creating regret, but let us not repeat the same mistakes again next time.

I will go first - I made the biggest mistake not of this year, but my entire life. I trusted a co-worker and shared my card details and OTP for him to do some online transaction.
Never did I know that he was a scammer and he had already cheated many people in the company.
Lesson learnt: Never share card details and OTP with anyone else.
If he is a well known scammer and has scammed multiple people in the company, how does he still have a job?
 
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