topic How to get a CLI from Capital One in Credit Card Applications

How to get a CLI from Capital One

Curious_George2 — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 16:32:26 GMT

I have spent a lot of time this year testing what it takes to get a CLI from Capital One. Many people say it's simple: very high spend. That's pretty good general advice, but I wanted to get more specific. Spend how much? Must the high balances report? Does anything else matter?

My many denials and one CLI have allowed me to determine, with differing degrees of precision, what triggered various denial reasons in my case. Below is a summary of those findings. I hope other people will chime in with their findings about these or any other denial reasons. I'm going to break this into several small posts, so people can respond to individual reasons without quoting one huge post.

Edit: @Anonymous posted some links to official Capital One pages that answer a lot of questions about the CLI process: Link.

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

Curious_George2 — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 06:16:36 GMT

Denial Reason: Recent use of this account's existing credit line has been too low.

It appears there is a rule requiring an end-of-day utilization higher than some threshold between 44% and 66% within the last six months. I got this denial reason when my peak recent Util was 43%, but I did not get it when I had hit 66%.

There has been some question whether this rule requires a high balance to report on the statement. It does not. I received this denial reason when my most recent statement showed 31% utilization and my peak recent EOD Util was 43%. I did not receive this denial reason later in that same statement period, when my most recent statement utilization was still at 31% and my peak recent EOD Util was 68%.

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

Curious_George2 — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 06:16:58 GMT

Denial Reason: This account has not had enough recent payments to establish a recent payment history

It appears there is a rule requiring 4 (or maybe 3 or 2) payments in the prior six months. I haven't determined whether this is measured as of the last statement date or the CLI request date.

Interestingly, these payments can occur very close together in time. In other words, you don't have to wait long to satisfy this rule. Even if your card has been sock drawered for a long time, you can make four payments in one or two months and this reason will disappear.

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

Curious_George2 — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 06:17:19 GMT

Denial Reason: Your financial obligations reported to us by the credit reporting agency are too high.

This one is hard to study. CapOne does some weird stuff with account reviews. In my case, they do AR inquires of 1-3 bureaus every month. When one of those occurs right around the time a card reports, it's very difficult to know exactly what data CapOne saw. This uncertainty is compounded by the fact that all their SP inquiries other than the most one at each bureau are removed from our reports. So if you don't happen to pull all three reports, with SPs shown, every month, you may never know what they saw, when. Anyway...

I think this is a rule requiring aggregate utilization on revolving accounts to be under 30% and each individual revolver to be under 80%. I believe I got this denial reason when they saw my aggregate/max Util percentages at 32/45 and 26/87. I think it disappeared when they saw 27/79.

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

Curious_George2 — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 06:17:39 GMT

Denial Reason: Recent usage of this card for monthly spend has been too low

This one is worded poorly. It is not simply a rule about recent charges. I know this because I didn't get it when my card had gone 12 months with no charges. I had carried a balance most of that time, so I know that counts as "monthly spend." Weird.

As best I can tell, this seems to be associated with a hybrid rule, requiring either (a) charges in a statement period totaling at least 30% of credit limit, or (b) at least one statement in the past six showing utilization above some threshold -- maybe as high as 67%, but probably a fair bit lower.

I don't understand why they have this monthly spend rule. It seems like a redundant and less demanding variant of the use of credit line one discussed above. I never got dinged for monthly spend without also getting dinged for use of credit line. Perhaps I have misinterpreted the rules behind one or both of those reason codes.

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

Curious_George2 — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 06:18:49 GMT

Amount of Increase

The discussion above focuses entirely on their yes/no decision of whether to grant a CLI. From what I can tell, that is separate from the decision about the amount of the increase. From August through November 2020, all of the successful CLIs reported in the Approvals section (excluding PC, automatic CLIs, credit-steps, and co-branded Walmart cards) were in the 8% to 20% range, with a median of 10%. Actually, the 20% figure is a little misleading. Every one of those CLIs over 12% was actually just $100.

I will test this in a few days. I am about to hit the 6-month anniversary of my last CapOne CLI and believe my credit profile satisfies all their rules. My best guess is that my $4,100 CL will get a $400 increase.

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 21:34:44 GMT

CapOne recently tripled my limit. I have been using my card to the limit and paying it off several times each month. I asked for this same limit some months ago and was given the low monthly spend denial, then asked again for the same and got $100. When the limit was increased, I was nearly at my limit. I actually went into the account to pay it off and saw my CLI and was shocked.

Edit: I forgot to mention, this was quite interesting.

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

AverageJoesCredit — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 22:00:23 GMT

Very interesting research. Still doesnt explain how or why the give cli . At end of the day , no matter the denial reasons , its almost like Discover in that theres no rhyme or reason to who gets what. At least wirh Discover, you might get a good cli. Dont get that feeling with Cap One. Im not one for over analyzing credit cards but my experience with Cap One via Walmart definetly would not give me urge to app any other Cap One card, even if i could.

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

Curious_George2 — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 01:33:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
CapOne recently tripled my limit. I have been using my card to the limit and paying it off several times each month. I asked for this same limit some months ago and was given the low monthly spend denial, then asked again for the same and got $100. When the limit was increased, I was nearly at my limit. I actually went into the account to pay it off and saw my CLI and was shocked.

Edit: I forgot to mention, this was quite interesting.

You got a 3x CLI out of Capital One recently? That's amazing! Congratulations!

What was your limit before and after?

Thanks for sharing the detail about your balance being high when you made the successful request. I wonder if that's a way to nudge them to give more?

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

Curious_George2 — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 01:44:57 GMT

@AverageJoesCredit wrote:
Very interesting research. Still doesnt explain how or why the give cli . At end of the day , no matter the denial reasons , its almost like Discover in that theres no rhyme or reason to who gets what. At least wirh Discover, you might get a good cli. Dont get that feeling with Cap One. Im not one for over analyzing credit cards but my experience with Cap One via Walmart definetly would not give me urge to app any other Cap One card, even if i could.

I agree with you up to a point. I can't find any pattern in their automatic CLIs. But the vanilla ones (core product, prompted by customer request, no PC, not credit steps) do seem to follow a pattern.

Their denial letters seem truthful, though sometimes a little cryptic. When all those issues get resolved, they say yes. But as for the amount, for now they are giving most people either 10% (rounded down to a multiple of $100) or a flat $100, whichever is greater.

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

Anonymous — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 21:00:57 GMT

@Curious_George2 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
CapOne recently tripled my limit. I have been using my card to the limit and paying it off several times each month. I asked for this same limit some months ago and was given the low monthly spend denial, then asked again for the same and got $100. When the limit was increased, I was nearly at my limit. I actually went into the account to pay it off and saw my CLI and was shocked.

Edit: I forgot to mention, this was quite interesting.
You got a 3x CLI out of Capital One recently? That's amazing! Congratulations!

What was your limit before and after?

Thanks for sharing the detail about your balance being high when you made the successful request. I wonder if that's a way to nudge them to give more?

Thanks, I Started with 1.1k and they put me to 3.1k, so not quite tripled it but nearly. I think you're right about the being at the limit being a factor. I was approaching a year with that card but was at least 6 weeks out.

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

AverageJoesCredit — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 21:32:06 GMT

@Curious_George2 wrote:
@AverageJoesCredit wrote:
Very interesting research. Still doesnt explain how or why the give cli . At end of the day , no matter the denial reasons , its almost like Discover in that theres no rhyme or reason to who gets what. At least wirh Discover, you might get a good cli. Dont get that feeling with Cap One. Im not one for over analyzing credit cards but my experience with Cap One via Walmart definetly would not give me urge to app any other Cap One card, even if i could.
I agree with you up to a point. I can't find any pattern in their automatic CLIs. But the vanilla ones (core product, prompted by customer request, no PC, not credit steps) do seem to follow a pattern.

Their denial letters seem truthful, though sometimes a little cryptic. When all those issues get resolved, they say yes. But as for the amount, for now they are giving most people either 10% (rounded down to a multiple of $100) or a flat $100, whichever is greater.

Im still blown away on hiw they give people on $100 increases. Im not the richest guy on the planet, pretty poor actually, but theres not alot one can do with a $100 even spending it in a store or a grocery store. At least give people usable limits. If they screw the pooch and pay late or derog, yeah, show them hunskies but its sad that even heavy spendrs are rewarded with $100 increases.

On a different note i lol at my recent Amex cli denial. Main reason was low Fico score, 714.....followed by 4 other reasons that only a true MFer could love and reason out

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

Curious_George2 — Sun, 29 Nov 2020 22:29:01 GMT

No question, most of the increases they are giving now are paltry. I wonder if 10%/$100 is the lowest they can go without turning off CLIs altogether. 🧐Did they have a meeting to debate whether to try 5%/$50? 😂

Looking at this from a glass-half-full perspective however... puny increases are easier to turn down, and that provides more opportunities for curious people like me to test the algorithm. If they were more generous, I would swipe right to accept and pause my research for six months.

If they offer me anything less than $900 this time around I will decline it and keep the lab open. 👨‍🔬

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

Iusedtolurk — Mon, 30 Nov 2020 01:44:56 GMT

@Curious_George2 wrote:
I have spent a lot of time this year testing what it takes to get a CLI from Capital One. Many people say it's simple: very high spend. That's pretty good general advice, but I wanted to get more specific. Spend how much? Must the high balances report? Does anything else matter?

My many denials and one CLI have allowed me to determine, with differing degrees of precision, what triggered various denial reasons in my case. Below is a summary of those findings. I hope other people will chime in with their findings about these or any other denial reasons. I'm going to break this into several small posts, so people can respond to individual reasons without quoting one huge post.

I believe one way to get a cli from Cap1 is to NOT be me. I've received each of those listed denial reasons the two times I requested a cli.

I have a secured Cap1 that they said they are not unsecuring any in the near future (secured ones don't qualify for cli) and I have a QS1 that is now 2 years 3 months and received one cli after 6 months. I requested a cli after one year and again at two years with the sorry not yet replies and standard denial reasons.

My other 11 cards have all received either auto cli (some twice) or approved when requested. All cards either 2 years or approaching 2 years.

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

Curious_George2 — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 06:26:54 GMT

I hit the luv button today. I had predicted they would offer me $400. The result:

So, yeah, it looks like they currently have a strong preference for offering around 10%. After taking another look at the recent Approvals, I see the rounding is more nuanced than the simple "round down" rule I had previously speculated. Regardless, I hit the very handy "Not Now" button.

Some additional DPs: Scores are around 775, though EQ5, which I have heard they use, is closer to 730. My spend in each of the last three statement periods was around $2,100 (more than 50% of my limit). My balance peaked a few weeks ago at 96% of my limit. My latest statement balance, which was also my current balance at the time of the request, was 28% of CL. It probably goes saying, but everything about my account and my profile complies with the rules I postulated at the top of this thread.

My short-term plan is to run the balance up to 70% and request again to see if they offer more. Then pay it down to zero and see if that changes the offer at all. I don't expect either action to make any difference, but we'll see!

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

newmomnewme — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 06:49:12 GMT

I carried a 80% balance for 24 months, then paid it in full Aug 2020 and tried....denied. I waited until their SP showed up and tried again. $750 my line was $7750 so I took it, looks like I got a hair less than 10%. I was just so happy it was more than $100.

I haven't used the card much since the increase - cable or utility here, grocery trip there. Maybe I'll use it for Christmas shopping and try again end of March...I just wanted to get it to 10k; paying the 19.99% makes me not want to carry a balance.

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

Curious_George2 — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 06:16:44 GMT

I changed my mind. I really want to get the limit on this card up to a level that is somewhat close to my other cards, and that requires jumping on CLIs as aggressively as I can. I'm not confident anything I do will entice them to raise their offer at this time. Also, the testing I had in mind would have required me to accelerate some spending more than I'm comfortable with. So I requested a CLI again, got the same $400 offer (not surprising, nothing much changed) but this time I took it. I will post it in Approvals.

Regarding amounts, here is my best guess at their standard offers right now when they grant a cardholder's request for a CLI.

If your limit is this	Your likely CLI amount
$1600 or lower, not in Credit Steps	$100
$1601 to $2500	$200
$2501 to $3500	$300
$3501 to $4500	$400
$4501 to $7000?	$500
$7001? to $9000?	$750
$9001? to $12,000	$1000

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

ChargedUp — Sat, 12 Dec 2020 09:32:36 GMT

I recently received an automatic bump from $10K to $13K on Savor which I fully wasn't expecting. I'm suspecting they looked back through the spend that went through the card during this calendar year and noticed I'd had it over 50% at one time and PIF within the same statement. This along with a few transactions in the $3K-4K range and PIF those as well. Carried a $3K balance over a couple months when I was being cautious with cash surplus due to job uncertaintly, but PIF once I found out I was on firm ground with my employer. CLI happened while my DD who is an AU was using it in Las Vegas for shopping and entertainment. (She spent around $1400 over there and that's now PIF'd) Fico 08's have been steady in the 760-770 range on all 3. No baddies/no lates anywhere.

It definitely takes effort to get a useful CLI from Cap One. Those large purchases were for my ex wife who was having Paypal issues buying vinyl for her home business. I told her to PP me and just use my DD's card (who was with her at the time). Cap One didn't even blink at the $5600 purchase, nor any of the others where we did the same thing. I'm fairly certain without those transactions, I'd still be at $10K.

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Dec 2020 19:50:25 GMT

@Curious_George2 wrote:

Regarding amounts, here is my best guess at their standard offers right now when they grant a cardholder's request for a CLI.

If your limit is this Your likely CLI amount
$1600 or lower, not in Credit Steps $100
$1601 to $2500 $200
$2501 to $3500 $300
$3501 to $4500 $400
$4501 to $7000? $500
$7001? to $9000? $750
$9001? to $12,000 $1000

Really? Man, those are weak. Probably about the lowest percentage wise relative to current limit that I've seen.

My only experience was on my Cap One starter card from back in 2015. $3000 SL, CLI to $3500, then CLI to $4000 where it stalled for over a year. I was able to bypass the automated system (online and phone) and get the EO to do a manual review over the phone and got the card bumped from $4k to $10k via SP. That's where the card sits today and I've made no further CLI attempts.

Re: How to get a CLI from Capital One

Curious_George2 — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 02:04:26 GMT

@ChargedUp: Your huge auto CLI from them was awesome and a true outlier. For those of us who can't put 100%+ spend on our cards for a couple months, auto CLIs from Capital One these days seem very unlikely. I excluded the automatic ones from my analysis when looking through the Approvals from the last few months. I also excluded Credit Steps and one strange (but great!) CLI that came bundled with a PC.