Could keep all of them that don’t have annual fees, and spread out your purchasing. I have three cards, one that’s 2% off everything, and one that’s more off food, and another that’s more off online purchases. My aggregate credit limit is pretty high even if each one were a bit modest (they aren’t as modest as they used to be though)

You can always pay off your balance more often than monthly. When I first opened my first card, I paid it off every Friday, to make sure the small limits were available if I needed them (I had a credit limit of $1,000 back then). Now I pay them off every payday, still multiple times a month. If you need to carry a large balance across payment cycles, you’ll get stuck on a high interest rate treadmill you don’t want to be on anyway.

The credit limits increase with time. The $1,000 card I started with now has a $10,000 limit. Mostly the limits came automatically, but I did request an increase to be able to pay for a home repair in a single transaction. Now between the three cards I have a lot of limit.

A fair number of places where you might want to spend a lot of money in a single transaction won’t accept credit cards anyway over a threshold. Last time I bought a car after establishing the price I asked about just charging it to a credit card. They were willing to do it only for $2,000, so I had to cut a check for most of the car anyway.