topic Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases in Credit Cards

Capital One Credit Limit Increases

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 00:47:16 GMT

I am wondering if anyone knows if requesting a credit limit increase through Capital One will cause a "hard pull" on my credit.

The reason I am asking is that I am applying for a new mortgage to build a house. My credit score is was just a couple of points shy of being able to go through automated underwriting. The guy at the mortgage company said everything should be fine and we'd be able to get that score up just by paying a little more off on the two card which I actively use. Well, a couple of days after speaking to him, a 17 year old credit card with an $8000 limit, which I had with my ex-wife, but never used, was closed out by that bank, causing my score to drop about 6 points. so now I'm going the wrong way! I am trying to get my score back up quickly and a mere $2000 limit increase on my current card would put me over where I need to be. But... if Capital One does a hard pull on my credit, then even if I get what I need, it will keep me below the score. I'm walking on eggshells because I don't want my score to go down any further.

Also, does anyone have any idea why Equifax is so slow updating credit reports? They are my middle credit score, and the one that the mortgage company is using for my automated underwriting determination. I have made over $1000 in payments on my 2 cards and it has been more than a month and they haven't reflected this. Both Experian and Transunion have.

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

M_Smart007 — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 00:54:17 GMT

@AnonymousWelcome to the forum!

Cap1 CLI's .. It should be Soft Pull.

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 01:28:54 GMT

Good luck. Cap1 is known for being stingy with CLI for some reason. But as others said, expect a soft pull.

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

pinkandgrey — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 01:53:04 GMT

It would be a SP. But CapOne isn't known for handing out CLIs generously lol.

Good luck and congrats on the future house!!

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

TattnallTrio — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 02:11:03 GMT

SP for the Capital One cards but Kohl's/CapOne may be a HP

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

Aim_High — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 02:23:16 GMT

Capital One makes you work for CLI. Here's their rules:

Soft pull
Limit one increase every six months
Don't expect much at a time. $1K to $3K is typical.
Showing Utilization of existing CL for about three months before the increase is key. Use as much of your card's existing limit as possible. You will not get an increase without significant utilization.
Run up balances and allow them to post to statement before you pay it off. I have no confirmation but I believe this may help the computer algorithm see you warrant an increase. This is just my personal observation. See my thread link below.
There is no reconciliation and nobody that Capital One will let you talk to about CLI. It's all automated, or so they claim.

One of my previous posts on Capital One CLI:

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Card-Approvals/Woo-Hoo-Reached-my-Capital-1-QS-CLI-Goal/td-p/5950664

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 02:33:02 GMT

@Aim_High wrote:
Capital One makes you work for CLI. Here's their rules:

Soft pull
Limit one increase every six months
Don't expect much at a time. $1K to $3K is typical.
Showing Utilization of existing CL for about three months before the increase is key. Use as much of your card's existing limit as possible. You will not get an increase without significant utilization.
Run up balances and allow them to post to statement before you pay it off. I have no confirmation but I believe this may help the computer algorithm see you warrant an increase. This is just my personal observation. See my thread link below.
There is no reconciliation and nobody that Capital One will let you talk to about CLI. It's all automated, or so they claim.
One of my previous posts on Capital One CLI:
https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Card-Approvals/Woo-Hoo-Reached-my-Capital-1-QS-CLI-Goal/td-p/5950664

I'm a new cap 1 customer, but I'd add:

if you ask for a CLI while you are still in the credit steps program, you get the CLI and the credit steps. (I read that they add the new CLI to the credit steps, but I can't verify that; my credit steps still says the amount it always says, minus the new CLI)

for those doing AZEO like myself, running up balances that get reported to the CBs is a no-no. Your highest balance is supposed to be reported on your CR anyway, there's a field for that.

for the rest, I will follow what you say!

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

Brian_Earl_Spilner — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 02:38:54 GMT

@Aim_High wrote:
Capital One makes you work for CLI. Here's their rules:

Soft pull
Limit one increase every six months
Don't expect much at a time. $1K to $3K is typical.
Showing Utilization of existing CL for about three months before the increase is key. Use as much of your card's existing limit as possible. You will not get an increase without significant utilization.
Run up balances and allow them to post to statement before you pay it off. I have no confirmation but I believe this may help the computer algorithm see you warrant an increase. This is just my personal observation. See my thread link below.
There is no reconciliation and nobody that Capital One will let you talk to about CLI. It's all automated, or so they claim.
One of my previous posts on Capital One CLI:
https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Card-Approvals/Woo-Hoo-Reached-my-Capital-1-QS-CLI-Goal/td-p/5950664

You don't need to report a high balance at statement. Just use it heavily. Cycle the card a couple of times and let it report 0.

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

Gollum — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 07:43:10 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I am wondering if anyone knows if requesting a credit limit increase through Capital One will cause a "hard pull" on my credit.

The reason I am asking is that I am applying for a new mortgage to build a house. My credit score is was just a couple of points shy of being able to go through automated underwriting. The guy at the mortgage company said everything should be fine and we'd be able to get that score up just by paying a little more off on the two card which I actively use. Well, a couple of days after speaking to him, a 17 year old credit card with an $8000 limit, which I had with my ex-wife, but never used, was closed out by that bank, causing my score to drop about 6 points. so now I'm going the wrong way! I am trying to get my score back up quickly and a mere $2000 limit increase on my current card would put me over where I need to be. But... if Capital One does a hard pull on my credit, then even if I get what I need, it will keep me below the score. I'm walking on eggshells because I don't want my score to go down any further.
Also, does anyone have any idea why Equifax is so slow updating credit reports? They are my middle credit score, and the one that the mortgage company is using for my automated underwriting determination. I have made over $1000 in payments on my 2 cards and it has been more than a month and they haven't reflected this. Both Experian and Transunion have.

FICO scores treat inquiries differently depending on the timing and the type of loan. You should read the section "What to know about rate shopping" at the myFICO webpage https://www.myfico.com/credit-education/credit-reports/credit-checks-and-inquiries

If the loan you want is a home construction loan, I don't know how differently those are treated from "normal" mortgages.

If you recently applied for the loan, I am guessing that it would not hurt to apply at ~~a couple~~ several different banks/whatever. It seems to me (I am guessing again) that the applications would be treated as rate-shopping. Despite how the term "rate-shopping" sounds, rate-shopping is treated more leniently regarding inquiries.

Edit: I think it would be a good idea to pay the relatively small (compared to a mortgage / construction loan) fee to obtain your own FICO scores, at least until you have no more mortgage / construction loan possibilities.

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

AverageJoesCredit — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 11:17:12 GMT

@Anonymous Equifax is best compared to THE CREEPER

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 14:25:44 GMT

You do not get cli and credit steps any more you get a portion of the steps amount and the rest at 6 months

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 14:40:08 GMT

I requested a CLI last month, it was for sure a HP.

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

Nomad3 — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 14:47:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I requested a CLI last month, it was for sure a HP.

For what card? Was it Co-Branded?

My last CLI was a SP, but they saw fit to only give me an extra $150 [asked for +$4500 lol]

Which also leads to my rejoinder about expecting $1k-3k... $150!

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

CreditCrusader — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 15:37:37 GMT

Question to anyone who knows:

After you complete your steps and receive your $500 limit, how long should one wait before applying for a card like Savor or Venture? For the sake of this question, let's assume that FICO scores are in the mid 600s with some form of baddie (6+ mo old BK, old charge-off/repo, etc.).

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

Aim_High — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 17:11:09 GMT

@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:
@Aim_High wrote:
Capital One makes you work for CLI. Here's their rules:
Run up balances and allow them to post to statement before you pay it off. I have no confirmation but I believe this may help the computer algorithm see you warrant an increase. This is just my personal observation. See my thread link below.
You don't need to report a high balance at statement. Just use it heavily. Cycle the card a couple of times and let it report 0.

To clarify, I wasn't suggesting running up a high utilization balance. Just using a grand total of at least 25 to 50% of your existing credit line over a few months. (That could be just new charges of 10% to 15% of your credit line for three months in a row, paid off after statement cut.) At lower credit lines, that's not too difficult. As your limits increase, it can become more difficult to meet higher levels of spend (as a percentage of utilization) that they seem to be looking for.

As I said, I don't have outside confirmation that allowing balances to post to statement cut helps, but I do have my own significant data points at the link below. It was not just subjecture. I had been getting CLIs with Capital One regularly after putting heavier spend on my card for three months. On the last one I got, I paid off some larger balances mid-cycle that didn't post to statement. So even though I was using the card pretty heavily, it took me 4.5 months of heavier spending to get the final increase. The only two factors that seemed different that time was (1) my higher credit limit made it harder to reach the %-spend that they were looking for or (2) my early payments before statement cut somehow affected their algorithms in case it uses statement balances over a few months to look at spending. Since MOST people don't pay off their credit cards before the bill even comes due, it would make sense that they think that is an easy number to pull out of customer's file for their algorithm. In my case, it could have also just been the higher CL I was trying to get an increase on ($22K to $25K) which required heavier spending than I expected.

For anyone who wants to look into it, I posted some very detailed data points including monthly spending patterns in my approval for that CLI at this link. You can draw your own conclusions.

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Card-Approvals/Woo-Hoo-Reached-my-Capital-1-QS-CLI-Goal/m-p/5951341#M664978

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

Aim_High — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 17:08:38 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
for those doing AZEO like myself, running up balances that get reported to the CBs is a no-no. Your highest balance is supposed to be reported on your CR anyway, there's a field for that.

I won't say there's anything wrong with Azeo itself, but it's most helpful as a short-term technique to help boost your credit score just before you apply for new credit. Doing it month-after-month may be overkill when you're not applying for new credit, unless you just get some pleasure out of seeing zero balances. The only exception I would say is if you have only a couple of very low limit cards that don't really suffice for your level of monthly spending and would show relatively high utilization if you don't pay them off early.

The high balance on your credit report is just the highest balance that was ever allowed to post to statement on that account. That would have nothing to do with Capital One approving an increase. They have much more detailed data anyway on your card usage, including that figure. What they are really looking for, though, is how much "love" (spending) you've shown them lately. What you did six months ago or two years ago doesn't matter when you go for a CLI with them.

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

randomguy1 — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 17:35:43 GMT

It's a soft pull and I wouldn't risk ANYTHING during my mortgage process. It's too much of a pain to deal with. Lock your credit file to be sure.

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

AzCreditGuy — Thu, 11 Jun 2020 18:02:00 GMT

Oh boy do I know this one.....Getting denied for too high balances and then paying off those high balances and getting denied for credit line that has been too low? Capital One is Bi-polar, I’ve learned my lesson with them and figured out a way to get a CLI after I tested it and it worked. My goal was to do this again in May but I am busy with other things to start doing it again. Im at $6.5k CL my goal is $10k and be done with the card. Ill be testing again in July

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

Aim_High — Thu, 11 Jun 2020 20:55:21 GMT

@AzCreditGuy wrote:
Oh boy do I know this one.....Getting denied for too high balances and then paying off those high balances and getting denied for credit line that has been too low? Capital One is Bi-polar, I’ve learned my lesson with them and figured out a way to get a CLI after I tested it and it worked. My goal was to do this again in May but I am busy with other things to start doing it again. Im at $6.5k CL my goal is $10k and be done with the card. Ill be testing again in July

Do tell. What's the trick you are testing for Capital One CLI or is it just a variation of the heavier spend before a CLI?

Re: Capital One Credit Limit Increases

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Sep 2020 04:34:41 GMT

It's a soft pull, I've tried multiple times...Good luck. It's my first and oldest card that I opened in college yet it's the card with the lowest limit. I don't understand why they are so stingy with credit line increase...