Today marked the 1 year anniversary of my Freedom card. Had only a 1500 dollar limit that was auto-cli'd to 2000 about 4 months ago. So I woke up this morning feeling lucky and app'd for the Sapphire Preferred.
To my suprise I was approved instantly! Holy cow. I was shocked to see that 8k limit. 4x my previous highest limit. Pretty crazy to think just a year ago I was on the phone recon'ing the Freedom.
Pretty sure they pulled Experian. Score is probably around 690. Util about 17%. AAoA is 4 years with 4 inq'd in the past year. None in the last 6 months. Income is 150k. I know from my year end Chase statement I ran 10k through the Freedom card. Pretty sure that helped my odds. I'll reiterate that I did not have a 5k limit before this card. I know that's a common question that seemed 50/50 in old posts about app'ing.
As far as negatives go I have 2 pretty ugly trade lines ( several 90,120,180 lates ) from previously troubled student loans. The last ugliness is from about 4 years ago. I was full expecting to have to pleade my case to Chase for this card via the backdoor.
Just thought I'd share...you know before I app'd I spent an hour looking through old posts of people app'ing or considering app'ing for the card here on MyFico. 
Wow! That's an awesome limit!
That's great, Congrats on the approval and nice CL!
Starting Score: EQ 717 EX 724 TU 736
Sweet nice starting CL! Congrats!
Congrats! Love this card. Nice CL.
Congrats! Very nice limit!! :-)
Last App: 4/5/13 Gardening until July 2014