topic Re: Testing out theory in Credit Cards

Testing out theory

SRT4kid93 — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 15:33:24 GMT

Hey all,

i'm testing out a theory I have, I spoke to brutal body shots, who was the one who originally discovered the 5K/6-month method for amex revolvers. (after getting to 35K)

however I found it a little strange that they allowed you to request every 3 months but required you waited 6 for this method, so out of curiosity I asked him if he ever tried to do it every 3 months, and he said no.

he did try to request over 5000 at times, but never tried to request before 6 months.

so my working theory is that it's possible that this is actually a 3 month /5K method.

has anyone ever tried to request 5K every 3 months to see if that worked?

Re: Testing out theory

ElvisCaprice — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 03:42:53 GMT

No, what for? You can't deposit CLI's into a checking account.

Re: Testing out theory

SRT4kid93 — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 04:48:15 GMT

@ElvisCaprice

Im not sure I understand what you're getting at? It's just another data point for the community. Maybe you don't care, and that's fine, but I happen to know there are tons of people who would be interested in this.

plenty of people are at the 35k threshold with amex, and the vast majority of them are unwilling to link their bank, meaning getting around income verification is of general interest to pretty much anyone who has an amex card and wants to grow their limit.

Re: Testing out theory

ElvisCaprice — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 05:15:42 GMT

@SRT4kid93 wrote:
@ElvisCaprice

Im not sure I understand what you're getting at? It's just another data point for the community. Maybe you don't care, and that's fine, but I happen to know there are tons of people who would be interested in this.

plenty of people are at the 35k threshold with amex, and the vast majority of them are unwilling to link their bank, meaning getting around income verification is of general interest to pretty much anyone who has an amex card and wants to grow their limit.

It's not about caring. It's all about the irrelevancy of chasing exhorbitant CL's for the game of more CL and not for spend. I'm sure if you had the spend to support a needed higher CL, AMEX would be more than willing to give it.

I would also make the case that exhorbitant CL's have zero benefit and possible negative effects. Especially for churning.

Re: Testing out theory

ElvisCaprice — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 05:29:29 GMT

For advanced profiles, clean, thick, mature scorecards. Your experiment is unnecessary.

BUT

For someone with a young profile or rebuild, it may have some merit, fast CL growth. As AMEX is known for being generous with CLI's and to grow CL's to ones future needs as fast as possible. Which we already know exists, the tripling of AMEX CL.

Re: Testing out theory

mgood — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 12:50:13 GMT

I'm a little under $35k now. I don't think I've asked for a CLI at less than 6 months since I hit $27k. That limit was more than enough. I just get the itch once in a while and realize I haven't asked Amex in over 6 months and hit the love button out of boredom.

Blue Cash Preferred

04/12/24 $ 1,000 SL

10/20/24 $ 3,000 (3x)

01/19/25 $ 9,000 (3x)

04/20/25 $27,000 (3x)

10/25/25 $31,400 ($4400 increase, asked for $35k)

06/04/26 $34,600 ($3200 increase, asked for $36k)

So I'm not quite hitting the 5k increase mark either. I'm only charging $200-300 per month on it.

Re: Testing out theory

BrutalBodyShots — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 14:26:59 GMT

@mgood wrote:

So I'm not quite hitting the 5k increase mark either. I'm only charging $200-300 per month on it.

It would make sense then why your CLIs are smaller.

Re: Testing out theory

SRT4kid93 — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 15:20:19 GMT

@ElvisCaprice

But that's exactly my point, irrelevant for who?

for me, getting over 35k is not irrelevant at all. My monthly statements for the past 3 months have been between 6k-10k. Meaning with a 35k limit, my utilization falls between 17-28%. Not absurdly high, but not great either.

So for me, the higher the limit I can achieve the better. And I happened to get stopped for income verification, linked my accounts. And was still denied after linking my accounts.

it's not about spend with amex, especially once your get to the 35k mark. They make you link your accounts so they can see how much money you make. That's what matters to them.

Re: Testing out theory

ElvisCaprice — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 21:53:37 GMT

@SRT4kid93 wrote:
@ElvisCaprice

But that's exactly my point, irrelevant for who?

for me, getting over 35k is not irrelevant at all. My monthly statements for the past 3 months have been between 6k-10k. Meaning with a 35k limit, my utilization falls between 17-28%. Not absurdly high, but not great either.

So for me, the higher the limit I can achieve the better. And I happened to get stopped for income verification, linked my accounts. And was still denied after linking my accounts.

it's not about spend with amex, especially once your get to the 35k mark. They make you link your accounts so they can see how much money you make. That's what matters to them.

Well, the info you opened the thread up with on CLI's is irrelavant to you. Since your issue is with AMEX and verification, they don't like what they are seeing from you. And no tricks to get higher faster CLI's is going to change that, until AMEX says so.

Utilization is not your issue with AMEX as far as AMEX CC's TCL.

On another note, utilization has no memory with FICO 8, thus AZEO when appropriate for apps, if needed. You can do 80% utilization with AMEX for 11 months out of the year, but the one month before an application, do 0 or 1% and your FICO 8 score will be no different than if you did 0 to 1% the entire year.

Re: Testing out theory

SRT4kid93 — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 02:53:07 GMT

@ElvisCaprice

It's completely relevant, the entire point of the 6month/5k method is to AVOID IV.

yes, at this point Amex wants to see something I'm not willing to give them. I linked accounts that I use for everyday bill pay. The accounts I linked showed immense cash flow, (via bonuses, investments, internal transfers between accounts, money from side businesses, reimbursement checks from work, etc)

along with an average balance of about 30,000-60,000 over the past 3 months. but only a small part of my salary goes into those accounts. And Amex made it clear they are looking for after tax/after deduction salary when I spoke to them.

doing so would mean linking more accounts. Which I'm not willing to do at this point. I was willing to give them a general idea of my finances, but I am not willing to give them every piece of financial information that exists on me. Meaning at this point, IV isn't an option for me. Unless I become willing to link further accounts thereby relinquishing any privacy I have left.

however, Using This method avoids IV prompt altogether.

Re: Testing out theory

Patient957 — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 13:58:29 GMT

@ElvisCaprice wrote:

On another note, utilization has no memory with FICO 8, thus AZEO when appropriate for apps, if needed. You can do 80% utilization with AMEX for 11 months out of the year, but the one month before an application, do 0 or 1% and your FICO 8 score will be no different than if you did 0 to 1% the entire year.

I think your reasoning is flawed here. Just because Fico 8 has no memory of past utilization doesn't mean Amex underwriting has no memory of it. Amex can and almost certainly does look at utilization over time in its underwriting decisions for existing card holders, both for CLIs and new applications. The limitations of Fico 8 do not constrain Amex whatsoever.

Now for first time applicants, all they see is the snapshot at application time. But for existing customers they have all the history, and of course they use it.

Re: Testing out theory

ElvisCaprice — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 21:36:54 GMT

@Patient957 wrote:
@ElvisCaprice wrote:

On another note, utilization has no memory with FICO 8, thus AZEO when appropriate for apps, if needed. You can do 80% utilization with AMEX for 11 months out of the year, but the one month before an application, do 0 or 1% and your FICO 8 score will be no different than if you did 0 to 1% the entire year.
I think your reasoning is flawed here. Just because Fico 8 has no memory of past utilization doesn't mean Amex underwriting has no memory of it. Amex can and almost certainly does look at utilization over time in its underwriting decisions for existing card holders, both for CLIs and new applications. The limitations of Fico 8 do not constrain Amex whatsoever.

Now for first time applicants, all they see is the snapshot at application time. But for existing customers they have all the history, and of course they use it.

How is it flawed? My suggestion on gaming utilizatiion for FICO wasn't for AMEX, but for apps to issuers besides AMEX. But still this doesn't change anything with AMEX CLI's.

Of course AMEX has detailed history of it's own accounts that would paint a more detailed picture of utilization beyond what a new applicants bureau file would show. But why would that change anything? In fact, it would only strengthing the fact that an existing account holder is due a CLI since their utilization runs so high with their AMEX accounts, presuming that they PIF each statement, on time.

But we already know that the op has failed this having missed an ontime payment. Along with not providing the information requested by AMEX. How to game CLI's with AMEX is not the ops issue. It's AMEX not liking the ops profile for any further CLI with reason. Time will be the only healer.

Re: Testing out theory

SRT4kid93 — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 01:51:44 GMT

@ElvisCaprice @Patient957

Just to clarify,

the missed payment wasn't with Amex, it was on a car loan from 2019.

also, I provided the bank statements Amex requested. They just refused to give any weight to anything except "after tax salary"

the 50,000 from investments, nope

10k from bonuses? Nope

you get the point.

now yes, they are welcome to ask for whatever they want. But I think it's extremely foolish for them to ignore such things and does them and the customer a disservice.

had they given me the full cli I was asking for, it would have given me incentive to spend even more money with them. Making them more money. They said I could provide more information to be further considered. But I was turned off by the whole situation and unwilling to give them more information.

It was already clear I was no risk to them based on the information I already gave them. You can argue they felt differently and felt giving me 50,000 instead of 35,000 was "risky"

But I think it was their unwillingness to be flexible. It's like a job who turns down an amazing applicant simply because they didn't go to college. Which I think is also extremely foolish. And not something I would ever do. You can potentially miss out on the best employee you have ever had simply because you were unwilling to be flexible.

plus, if they are willing to give me 35k, clearly they feel I'm credit worthy, and not a credit risk,

Re: Testing out theory

ElvisCaprice — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 06:29:14 GMT

@SRT4kid93 wrote:
@ElvisCaprice @Patient957

Just to clarify,

the missed payment wasn't with Amex, it was on a car loan from 2019.

also, I provided the bank statements Amex requested. They just refused to give any weight to anything except "after tax salary"

the 50,000 from investments, nope

10k from bonuses? Nope

you get the point.

now yes, they are welcome to ask for whatever they want. But I think it's extremely foolish for them to ignore such things and does them and the customer a disservice.

had they given me the full cli I was asking for, it would have given me incentive to spend even more money with them. Making them more money. They said I could provide more information to be further considered. But I was turned off by the whole situation and unwilling to give them more information.

It was already clear I was no risk to them based on the information I already gave them. You can argue they felt differently and felt giving me 50,000 instead of 35,000 was "risky"

But I think it was their unwillingness to be flexible. It's like a job who turns down an amazing applicant simply because they didn't go to college. Which I think is also extremely foolish. And not something I would ever do. You can potentially miss out on the best employee you have ever had simply because you were unwilling to be flexible.

plus, if they are willing to give me 35k, clearly they feel I'm credit worthy, and not a credit risk,

You'll be fine, you got solid income, just a matter of time with good accounting to get AMEX to come around and give you more CLI. In fact, heavy utilization could make them come around sooner. Agree, they still want you as a client. Time/patience is all you need here.