How to get a CLI from Capital One

Curious_George2 · ‎11-26-2020

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.

Curious_George2 · ‎11-26-2020

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%.

Curious_George2 · ‎11-26-2020

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.

Curious_George2 · ‎11-26-2020

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.

Curious_George2 · ‎11-26-2020

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.

Curious_George2 · ‎11-26-2020

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.

Anonymous · ‎11-27-2020

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.

AverageJoesCredit · ‎11-27-2020

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.

Curious_George2 · ‎11-27-2020

@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?

Curious_George2 · ‎11-27-2020

@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.