Any advantage to credit cards from Lowes, Home Depot, etc?

[Patty Hann]

In Canada, you need to be careful about having too many cards. Even if you pay them off completely each month, they affect your credit rating. When lenders check your credit rating, the maximum on each of those cards is considered a liability. So, if I have 3 x $10,000 max limit cards, lenders assume that I already have a $30,000 loan against my income. This can affect their decision to give me a car loan or mortgage, for example.

It's true in the US also.
I don't know what time of month the Credit bureaus take a "snapshot" of one's card usage, but if the real time balance on your card(s) is too high (it's the ratio of current balance to available credit) , you get dinged for a month or so with a lower credit score.
I pay off my 3 cards ( 2 VISAs and one Discover ) every month. but my FICO score still bounces around between 815 and 826.

[Bill Howatt]

That ratio is the credit utilization and it should be below 30%. Apparently it is the second most important factor in setting the score after payment history.
Being this is a big factor probably puts a little rationale into having a larger limit (or spread out over cards) is better than having a lower limit and being over 30% on a card - which is somewhat counter-intuitive.

[Allan Dozier]

Use my Lowes business card all the time. Seems I am in Lowes at least every 2 or 3 days. When building and outfitting a house it saves a bunch. BTW, I use mine at the self service checkout at every Lowes I've been to.