topic Re: Cap One Steps CLI in Credit Cards

Cap One Steps CLI

bichonmom — Fri, 20 May 2011 07:20:00 GMT

I have two new Cap One cards in the "steps" program. They both promised a CLI if I used the card at least once and made 3 months of payments for one card, and 5 months of payments for the other card. (One is a biz card and one is personal.)

After reading lots of posts, I decided it would be better to pay off what I had charged, instead of doing monthly payments (which was my original plan before finding the forum). So, my question is, now that I have a zero balance, do I need to charge on it again and pay again each month, in order to meet their requirement of the number of months of payments to get the CLI?

Also, I stumbled across this thread: http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/crawl_message?board.id=creditcard&message.id=71364

It has some interesting info about people getting an additional CLI before their auto CLI by calling the backdoor number. This thread is a few years old, so I was wondering if anyone has tried this recently with any luck.

Thanks!

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

Anonymous — Fri, 20 May 2011 11:43:06 GMT

I have a capital one card in the step program. I started with a $500 CL, after having the card for 5 months they incrase the limit to $750 automatically, I always paid the card in full every month.

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

mmduluth — Fri, 20 May 2011 12:25:05 GMT

My Cap1 card was in the credit steps program and what I did was charge something small to it every month and paid it off when the statement came in. My credit limit went from 300 to 500 to 750 to 1,000. I think they increased it every 3 months and now it stopped at 1,000 and that was almost 2 years ago.

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

Anonymous — Fri, 20 May 2011 12:33:09 GMT

After you get your 2 steps, no more CLIs. They refuse to grant any CLIs no matter what.

I have a couple cards with them that haven't seen the light of day in years since I now have other cards that have CL's about 15X larger than my Cap Ones.

My Cap Ones also have the highest APRs. A year ago I got an offer to reduce one of my Cap Ones to an 8.something% APR with an effective APR of 11%. That is still higher than my NFCU cashRewards card which I cherish.

4 months after I got my reduced rate, I got a letter in the mail reminding me of the rate reduction and that I hadn't used their card. Ugh, DUH Capital One you do an A/R pull and see my credit reports, you should be able to figure out why I'm not using your cards.

The only reason why I don't close them: 1. age 2. discount on foreign transactions. Last 2 trips I made to England though I pretty much used cash for everything because I don't have those "chip & pin" cards and American/US credit cards are now harder to accept in the UK because so many merchants want to see a credit card with a smart chip onit.

I hope Navy starts issuing chip & pin cards... I have another biz trip to England coming up.

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

Anonymous — Fri, 20 May 2011 12:46:28 GMT

@bichonmom wrote:
I have two new Cap One cards in the "steps" program. They both promised a CLI if I used the card at least once and made 3 months of payments for one card, and 5 months of payments for the other card. (One is a biz card and one is personal.)

After reading lots of posts, I decided it would be better to pay off what I had charged, instead of doing monthly payments (which was my original plan before finding the forum). So, my question is, now that I have a zero balance, do I need to charge on it again and pay again each month, in order to meet their requirement of the number of months of payments to get the CLI?

Also, I stumbled across this thread: http://ficoforums.myfico.com/fico/board/crawl_message?board.id=creditcard&message.id=71364
It has some interesting info about people getting an additional CLI before their auto CLI by calling the backdoor number. This thread is a few years old, so I was wondering if anyone has tried this recently with any luck.

Thanks!

Unfortunately, that was before Cap1 changed their procedures. They used to allow senior account managers some leeway and they could grant early CLIs if the account had been well managed and deemed worthy. Now it's strictly a computer decision.

That being said, I WAS successful in getting my CS CLI to kick in a month ahead of schedule. I had a 500 CL, but pushed well over 1000/mo on it by paying at least once, but usually 2 or 3 times a week. I wanted the cash rewards, so I used it a lot! I spoke to a senior CSR at the number listed on the sticky and told him that I wanted to be able to push even more through the account, but that since I needed to wait two days for charges to post before I could pay them, I sometimes had to use a different card to fund some of my purchases in order to avoid getting too close to my CL. He reviewed my account and then kicked it up to his supervisor, who made the decision to give me the CLI early. That was a couple of months ago. I have not had a CLI since, but I've been told that I may be eligible for further increases periodically, just not as part of the CS program. We'll see. Last fall several people on this forum received CLIs out of nowhere. I remain something of an optimist.

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

bichonmom — Fri, 20 May 2011 15:06:04 GMT

Thank you for the replies! My Cap Ones don't have any rewards, so there's really no motivation for me to use them, besides rebuilding my credit.

Bummer about their change of policy! Too bad I didn't have it back then. That said, maybe I'll try what you're doing and charge more, pay more often, and call the backdoor number and see what happens. I guess it can't hurt to try. I'd really like to get a card with rewards like so many people on the forum seem to have.

Thanks!

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

Anonymous — Fri, 20 May 2011 19:48:08 GMT

I entered into this several years ago when my CS was horrible and while it was very slow to get CLI for the first few years, I did go from $300 to $500 to $800 to $1200. I thought, based on what I was reading on here, that I was done but a few months back they surprised me with a jump to $3500. So you CAN get additional CLI with the Steps program.

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

bichonmom — Fri, 20 May 2011 19:50:16 GMT

Thanks! That gives me some hope.

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

Anonymous — Fri, 20 May 2011 22:30:15 GMT

One in a million get to 3500 with cap one lol.

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

bichonmom — Fri, 20 May 2011 22:47:07 GMT

I'm not expecting anything so grand... but it does give me hope that I can get beyond the CLI to $500 and $750 that I'll probably get over the next few months.

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

mrmagic9799 — Sat, 21 May 2011 02:41:58 GMT

Well I just tried via the backdoor number....no dice for me...

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

barbaralee — Sat, 21 May 2011 03:49:07 GMT

They never increased my boyfriend's cl. EVER. He got that card straight out of high school, and to be fair I believe he wasn't using it very well at first. His mother told him to use his cc for everything, which he did. He would max it out, PIF, max out, PIF, rinse, repeat. Then he met me, and when we were finally in a comfortable enough stage in our relationship I gingerly mentioned that I didn't think maxing out his cc every month was very good for his credit history. I told him 20% uti, max. He googled it, thought it made sense, and after that would use it for no more than 20%. Fast forward a year and a half later and they STILL have not increased his cl above the meager $300 and now he's going into a doctorate program. By this time I'm working for USAA and he starts showing interest for one of their cards.

So I applied for him and he got approved for over $4800. So Cap1 is being sock drawered, to be used strictly for net purchases. I'm kind of curious to see if they will increase his credit now that he has added a pretty substantial tradeline.

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

Anonymous — Tue, 24 May 2011 14:49:52 GMT

am i lucky or what? i just got a platinum cash reward with 3k limit, since i've been reading everyone is getting $300-$500 starting limit. I am not sure it's the avg credit one or the excellent credit one. but the one i got has no annual fee and with starting limit $300, and that's from the mail offer. i try to check cap1's site, the avg one has $39 annual fee, starting limit $300. excellent has no annual fee with $500 starting limit. so i don't really know which one did i get. however, i seriously doubt that i got the excellent credit one. since this is only my 2nd card. my 1st card is orchard rebuilding card with only $200 limit. i can only guess my auto loan really helped??? i got a 20k auto loan like 7 months ago, and 696 TU FICO before i applied the auto loan

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

bichonmom — Tue, 24 May 2011 14:59:22 GMT

Wow! Very lucky. Did you receive an invite in th mail or did you just apply? How long have you had your Orchard card? Maybe the length of time on that card helped you out.

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

Rvan1961 — Tue, 24 May 2011 15:15:30 GMT

Capital One Rewards card started at $500, then 3 months later $750, then about 5 months later, when I had the card at $700 balance, they upped me to $1250 out of nowhere I did call the 'backdoor' number last week, the agent explained to me that I am due at my 6 month mark, which is next month, and that Cap One doesn't do the credit increase by request for the last couple of years. He said sit tight and it will go up in a month or two.Dang, I HATE waiting...lol

The interest free period is over on this card so I don't really use it to much (Try to stay under 9% utilization). The rewards is nice and I am hoping since my credit is getting better they will increase it again soon. Good Luck, it's a great starter card as far as what I needed for now, hope to get PenFed when my credit is better.

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

Anonymous — Tue, 24 May 2011 15:20:39 GMT

I got the offer from the mail. orchard is not even 2 yrs old. avg age of credit is like 1 yr 2/3 months lol

btw, how to quote to reply?

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

MarineVietVet — Tue, 24 May 2011 15:33:59 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I got the offer from the mail. orchard is not even 2 yrs old. avg age of credit is like 1 yr 2/3 months lol
btw, how to quote to reply?

Hello and welcome to the Forums.

When you are replying to a post you will see a "Quote" button near the top of the page to the right of the "Spell Check" button. Click on this to quote what you are responding to.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 3/11 pulled by lender- 835, EQ - 2/11-816, TU - 2/11-782

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".

Re: Cap One Steps CLI

bichonmom — Tue, 24 May 2011 16:48:28 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I got the offer from the mail. orchard is not even 2 yrs old. avg age of credit is like 1 yr 2/3 months lol
btw, how to quote to reply?

Thanks for the info! I got my 2 "step" cards by mail invite, too, but only got $500 and $300 CL. Your history w/Orchard no doubt worked to your advantage. It seems like some people w/Cap One have low CL and it never gets beyond a certain point (even w/CLI), and others get really high CL and CLI. It sounds like you're one of the lucky ones!