topic Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible in Credit Card Approvals

Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

SRT4kid93 — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 02:45:39 GMT

Well,

It's been a year since my last capital one increase, for the past 6 months I've been getting denied with the reason "your account has been placed in a group of ineligible accounts to assess usage at current limits"

I was just about to give up completely, but decided to try one more time at requesting another increase. Low and behold they finally gave me an offer.

I was so excited to finally get past the denial screen and then I saw it. A $100 offer on a $5000 limit. To $5100.

I didn't even know this was possible, I thought 10% was the lowest capital one would go. And I always thought the $100 special was reserved for people with $300-$1000 limits.

at $5000 I thought $500 would be the lower offer I could get.

I will say? My current balance is only $100, so I'm going to play around with it a bit. I denied the offer and I'm going to try again when I have a large current balance. Figured the computer may gives me a bigger offer if it sees I'm using 80% of my limit. Plus, I've seen people having better luck when they request with large balances.

Getting past the denial screen for the first time in a year has given me just enough hope to give it 1 more shot. if requesting the increase with a high current balance doesn't work, I'll give up like I was planning to.

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

pizzadude — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 02:50:44 GMT

@SRT4kid93 wrote:
Well,

It's been a year since my last capital one increase, for the past 6 months I've been getting denied with the reason "your account has been placed in a group of ineligible accounts to assess usage at current limits"

I was just about to give up completely, but decided to try one more time at requesting another increase. Low and behold they finally gave me an offer.

I was so excited to finally get past the denial screen and then I saw it. A $100 offer on a $5000 limit. To $5100.

I didn't even know this was possible, I thought 10% was the lowest capital one would go. And I always thought the $100 special was reserved for people with $300-$1000 limits.

at $5000 I thought $500 would be the lower offer I could get.

I will say? My current balance is only $100, so I'm going to play around with it a bit. I denied the offer and I'm going to try again when I have a large current balance. Figured the computer may gives me a bigger offer if it sees I'm using 80% of my limit. Plus, I've seen people having better luck when they request with large balances.

Getting past the denial screen for the first time in a year has given me just enough hope to give it 1 more shot. if requesting the increase with a high current balance doesn't work, I'll give up like I was planning to.

Yeah a 2% CLI isn't nothing but it's about as close to zero as you can get.

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

AndySoCal — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 05:22:11 GMT

I will say this at the beginning I do not like Capital One for many reasons. Some those reasons stem from the reasons why they have been fined and more from other areas. Capital One will never be in my wallet. I have a freiend who told me this a few years ago and do not have a lot of details. He had Capital One card and they would not give him a ClI on. I believe he was told he needed to apply for another card. He did and recieved a credit limit that was or nearly double his existing card. Sometime after that Cap 1 gave him a CLI on the old card that was not a small one if my memory is correct. Even Capital One customer service cannot tell you what you need to do that would help you receive a larger credit limit.

Someonecwould need to educate me on why having a large balance reported helps getting a CLI. Capital One knows your spend, balance and payment history since the card was opened. If they do not close your accounts ASAP. 😄 I had a Capital Ome Walmart credit card I asked for a $500 CLI denied. I became a member of Redstone FCU and applied for their card which had a 3% rewards catagory for discount stores like Walmart. I recieved an instant approval for 10k my Cap 1 card limit was 3k. There are times where you are better off with another card from another financial institution. You can spend time and effort trying to figure out Cap 1 and be fistrated in the process. You have worked hard to get where you are now. Do not let Capital One stand in your way from getting to where you would like to be.

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

SRT4kid93 — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 05:27:22 GMT

@pizzadude

Honestly if they offered me 10%, I probably would have taken it, because usually with capital one I say take what you can get.

$100 on $300. That's one thing. but $100 on $5000? That's beyond pointless/useless.

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

Patient957 — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 14:52:11 GMT

@SRT4kid93

Have you burned Capital One in the past? If not, maybe that's the problem. They seem to prefer people who have burned them recently.

Seriously through, good luck trying to crack the Capital One code. Their underwriting is just weird. For me it was getting to 0/12 when they stooped hating me and switched to loving me. I got a big CLI on my Venture 1 and a big 30K approval on VX right at that time. Then they immediately went back to hating me. I can only get preapproved for secured cards now. And I wouldn't dare ask for a CLI right now. My spending on those cards barely supports the limits I have.

Anyway, I'm considering gardening until October to get to 0/12 again. I don't plan to apply for anything from Capital One at that time, but I am curious to see if they would go back to loving me again or least let me out of the secured card dog house.

But yeah, Capital One is hard to figure out, IMO.

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

SRT4kid93 — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 16:01:08 GMT

@Patient957

Nope never burned them. I'm pre approved for all of their excellent credit cards with subs as well as the venture x. So I know they like my profile

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

Patient957 — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 16:35:14 GMT

@SRT4kid93 wrote:
@Patient957

Nope never burned them. I'm pre approved for all of their excellent credit cards with subs as well as the venture x. So I know they like my profile

Obviously my question was a joke, but yeah this is just another example of Cap 1 crazy. They'll give you any new card but won't raise your limit on the Savor card you actually like and use. Makes zero sense.

I guess it's just a consequence of putting the algorithms in charge. When a human looks at the big picture of what the algos are doing, it probably all looks good. But buried in that data are a bunch of weird individual cases that make no sense whatsoever.

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

SRT4kid93 — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 18:00:08 GMT

@Patient957

this whole thing could be solved by implementing a recon line. The executive office used to have the power to change limits when people emailed but even thats went away. they have no power over the computers anymore.

chase's recon line works perfectly. i dont understand why every company doesnt have something like this. sure, it costs them some money, but the amount of revenue they probably lose every year from pissed off customers could be cut down if they had a recon line.

the computer seems way too flawed. for example, i have spent 75% of my limit or more every single month. but because i dont always let that balance report to the bureaus, the computer doesnt take it into account. i also have other limits deep into the double digits, doesnt really seem like the computer considers that either. what the computer looks for is speculation. Many people think the only thing capital one cares about is super high reported usage every month. statements closing with near maxed out balances.

lets assume the computers have tunnel vision for this, like people think. a recon line would completely solve this, because a person can see things the computer isnt looking for. they wouldnt even have to reprogram the computers so they look at total spend for the month, instead of just that balance when the statement closed.

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

Patient957 — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 19:51:17 GMT

@SRT4kid93

Every company gets decide for itself how to operate. Have you seen their stock price lately? It's working out just fine for them.

As the customer, you get to decide whether or not to business with them. You may have noticed some people on these forums won't do business with Cap One. It's their prerogative and yours too.

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

SeanA — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 22:28:33 GMT

Very interesting. I probably would have accepted the $100, thinking something is better than nothing, but I'm eager to hear whether your strategy works.

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

SRT4kid93 — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 23:35:08 GMT

@SeanA

it worked last time.

I had a 1k starting limit and after my 3rd statement I was able to request an increase. I continually got $100 offers and kept turning the down.

at the 6th month mark, I got an auto increase from 1k to 5k., so by turning down the $100 offers I ended up getting 4,000. (The only question is, would I have still gotten that $4000 auto increase if I accepted the $100 increase?)

It seems like my bucket is limited to $100 increases whenever they're manually submitted. Since this is the 2nd time I've dealt with this. But auto increases can be much bigger.

The situation is also a bit different because capital one accounts are automatically reviewed for an auto increase at the 6th month mark.

but after that, the account reviews seem to become very sporadic and random. Sometimes people will have a card for years and then suddenly get an auto increase randomly. Some people have gone 10 years without an auto increase.

it's so hard to pinpoint when I could potentially get another auto increase, or if it will ever happen at all. So the real question becomes "will I be able to get the system to offer me more than $100 on manually submitted increases?"

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

Snook_on_the_Line — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 23:39:07 GMT

Their way of saying 'thanks for being a cap1 customer'

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

AndrewF — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 01:38:03 GMT

@Patient957 wrote:
@SRT4kid93 wrote:
@Patient957

Nope never burned them. I'm pre approved for all of their excellent credit cards with subs as well as the venture x. So I know they like my profile
Obviously my question was a joke, but yeah this is just another example of Cap 1 crazy. They'll give you any new card but won't raise your limit on the Savor card you actually like and use. Makes zero sense.

I guess it's just a consequence of putting the algorithms in charge. When a human looks at the big picture of what the algos are doing, it probably all looks good. But buried in that data are a bunch of weird individual cases that make no sense whatsoever.

You could always get the new card then graft the credit line to the one you wanted a CLI on and force it on them that way.

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

youngandcreditwrthy — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 17:18:37 GMT

@SRT4kid93 Hate to be the bearer of bad news, and I hope your experience ends up being different, but I just accepted a measly $100 cli from 7000 to 7100 after 9 months of being told "not enough usage" and using between 10-40% of my limit and pif. so the last two months I used over 5k of the limit getting rid of their "not enough use" reason, and still got the only $100 cli offer. :-( I accepted. The truth is, they can decide to allow an increase of $1000 every 30 days if they want or do whatever.

my bet would be capital one will deny your next request and gaslight you lol - I am so just kidding btw- and cite "you recently rejected our $100 cli offer and therefore must wait" LOLOLOL

on my end, how much more can I utilize than 5100 out of 7000??? Im not gonna tank my score for a cli on C1 Venture. Sorrreee!!

Better luck to you though! Would love to see how this turns out. :-)

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

youngandcreditwrthy — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 17:32:28 GMT

@Patient957

oh yeah its working out! but...

that Disco purchase (I think it cost them $44 billion and Disco financed part of it lol)...gotta love leveraged buyouts and vendor buyouts.

point is: they probably are reassessing their own lending ,and they have to adhere to Basel accord tier 3 + requirements to prevent overleverage post-Glass Steagall axing. Resultantly, they are probably just being a little more cautious right now after all that CapEx/Acq.

I still remember for 5-7 years after the Great Recession, they stopped lowering APRs altogether (I was at 9% once), they would not increase any limit at all for any reason, and when you did have the EO to help, even they were still severely limited and wouldn't match even your avg CL.

I think with Capital One, they issue bigger limits with their co-branded cards.

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

SRT4kid93 — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 18:02:26 GMT

@youngandcreditwrthy

For me, accepting that increase feels like selling out. Like I'm letting them win. After making me wait a year, with no legitimate reason. They can do better than $100. Especially because I spent 40 grand in said year.

that doesn't even mention how pointless a $100 increase is. $5100 does absolutely nothing for me that 5000 can't.

so I'm OK with denying it and trying to hold out for a better increase even if it never comes. At least I tried

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

AndrewF — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 18:08:29 GMT

@SRT4kid93 wrote:
@youngandcreditwrthy

For me, accepting that increase feels like selling out. Like I'm letting them win. After making me wait a year, with no legitimate reason. They can do better than $100. Especially because I spent 40 grand in said year.

that doesn't even mention how pointless a $100 increase is. $5100 does absolutely nothing for me that 5000 can't.

so I'm OK with denying it and trying to hold out for a better increase even if it never comes. At least I tried

I'd just take it. Capital One won't feel snubbed. They're a tech company that does banking. The computer doesn't feel anything, it just makes decisions.

A lot of it is machine learning. Will they take higher credit default losses than a human credit analyst, maybe (I don't know), but payroll for those people is really expensive too so you can eat higher losses as long as they're not higher than having an army of credit analysts.

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

SeanA — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 22:12:19 GMT

@SRT4kid93 wrote:
@SeanA

it worked last time.

I had a 1k starting limit and after my 3rd statement I was able to request an increase. I continually got $100 offers and kept turning the down.

at the 6th month mark, I got an auto increase from 1k to 5k., so by turning down the $100 offers I ended up getting 4,000. (The only question is, would I have still gotten that $4000 auto increase if I accepted the $100 increase?)

It seems like my bucket is limited to $100 increases whenever they're manually submitted. Since this is the 2nd time I've dealt with this. But auto increases can be much bigger.

The situation is also a bit different because capital one accounts are automatically reviewed for an auto increase at the 6th month mark.

but after that, the account reviews seem to become very sporadic and random. Sometimes people will have a card for years and then suddenly get an auto increase randomly. Some people have gone 10 years without an auto increase.

it's so hard to pinpoint when I could potentially get another auto increase, or if it will ever happen at all. So the real question becomes "will I be able to get the system to offer me more than $100 on manually submitted increases?"

Thanks for breaking it down! I wonder if the manual requests somehow help trigger the auto increase. Maybe turning it down is even a positive signal?

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

SRT4kid93 — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 23:16:33 GMT

@SeanA

I don't think so, in order for that to happen the computer would need to keep track of every single time someone turned down an increase. I think it's more the fact that you can only get 1 increase every 6 months. (On average)

had I accepted that $100 increase at the 3/4 month mark, it probably would have disqualified me from getting the $4000 auto increase at the 6th month mark. The system probably would have determined that "I already received an increase recently"

do I know for sure? No, I'll never know if I could have taken the $100 increase and still could have gotten that auto increase on top, but I didn't want to risk it.

Like I said $100 does literally nothing for me. Honestly, I would rather get denied for an increase, that would be better than $100 offer. Way less insulting. I get far more satisfaction from turning them down and telling them to eat sh**.

Even though I know they will never know that I turned down the $100 offer. I'll know. So It still makes me feel better.

Re: Cap one offer I didn’t know was possible

Total_Synergy — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 05:50:20 GMT

I've never worked for Capital One, but I suspect they have motivational mission-statement posters like these in their offices:

It would explain everything about them, bless their lil' hearts...