I recently saw @GZG's thread with link for Capital One Venture X preapproval. (Thanks for that, GatoradeZeroGuy!) I've been very active in my credit seeking and am in the garden, but I was curious to see what they would say.
My TCL is high and I have a lot of revolving credit; however, as a factor or household income, I'm less than 2x household income. I've never seen a data point on Capital One denying for having too much credit, yet that was the primary reason for a negative preapproval. "Based on your credit report from one or more of the agencies listed below, there are too many revolving accounts." Notice that this doesn't say too many recent accounts but instead just says too many accounts. Consequently, I'm wondering if Capital One is more selective about the Venture X card for TCL to make it more selective and to make sure cardholders will put sufficient spend on it, or to possibly protect the SUB.
Has anyone else run into this reasoning without recent credit-seeking and at 1.5x to 2x household income or higher?
If Capital One will balk at an application in the future due to TCL, I might have to take a possible Venture X app off-the-table. I had thought I might apply for that card and later combine the limits from my Quicksilver since they are now allowing it again.
Also, the EX FICO score is lower than my Experian app is reporting (792 versus 813.)
I agree with all the "key factors" affecting score:
- Time since most recent account opening is too short.
- Too many inquiries in the last 12 months.
- Too many accounts recently opened.
- Lack of recent installment loan information. (I have no open auto, personal, or student loans in my name at this time.)
*For New Personal accounts, I am: 5/6; 6/12; 7/24
I think it's more about your scores being around 800. Cap1 and discover don't care much for people with exceptional credit.
I'm going to go with recent credit seeking as the real reason for your failed preapproval. They did SP my EQ report.
@Aim_HighOn the income side. I'm right at or just a tad over 2x my income. Once I started rebuilding I passed my salary in a couple yrs with Cap1. My first 3 cards out of BK. Approvals and CLI's were a breeze back then. I got scared and turned in 14k of credit line. Came on here and posted it. Man who let the dogs out. I got hammered. It doesnt mean a thing if your over your income! Oh. Ok. Lesson learned. But since then. Not 1 CLI. What you mouse over below it's where I've been at since the CLD's. Even with the Savor and I believe it still stands. They dont like those 800+ sores even with that card.
what do the pre-approval links for the Venture/Savor cards say?
use the pre-approval links found on the Savor/Venture pages themselves, not the generic pre-approval link
https://www.capitalone.com/credit-cards/preapprove/u/?landingPage=venture
https://www.capitalone.com/credit-cards/preapprove/u/?landingPage=savor
I also get 'too many revolving accounts' but that's far from the primary reason they're likely denying my pre-approval for the venture x
I would agree with @coldfusion that it's the new accounts, or maybe Cap1 doesn't like that they already have given you 30k
if you get SUB card offers on those other pre-approvals above, I would be much more confident in a future app
I imagine you're not being offered a venture X PC because your QS is a MC?
Do you have any of your reports frozen? Surprised they pulled Exp when they typically pull EQ, might be a location thing
0/6, 3/12, 10/24
@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:I think it's more about your scores being around 800. Cap1 and discover don't care much for people with exceptional credit.
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@FireMedic1 wrote:
@Aim_High On the income side. I'm right at or just a tad over 2x my income. Once I started rebuilding I passed my salary in a couple yrs with Cap1. My first 3 cards out of BK. Approvals and CLI's were a breeze back then. I got scared and turned in 14k of credit line. Came on here and posted it. Man who let the dogs out. I got hammered. It doesnt mean a thing if your over your income! Oh. Ok. Lesson learned. But since then. Not 1 CLI. What you mouse over below it's where I've been at since the CLD's. Even with the Savor and I believe it still stands. They dont like those 800+ sores even with that card.
Thanks for the replies, @Brian_Earl_Spilner and @FireMedic1.
I've heard the theory about Capital One favoring customers who have lower scores. I'm not sure I agree that plays into the issue, but more data points would be helpful to resolve this continued discussion. For the record, I'll just give my own analysis of why I question that theory.
I think the High FICO aversion is sometimes said about them because many on My FICO consider them a "subprime lender" but it's not lenders who are subprime; it's the consumer profile that is either prime or subprime. Lenders do sometimes structure their cards more towards certain market segments, but most lenders have products for consumers along the credit-score continuum. And interestingly enough, Capital One started out as a pure prime lender, as I referenced in this message. It just defies logic that Capital One would reject an applicant simply because he had a high credit score, meaning that he is more creditworthy. There must be some other profile variables in those high FICO cases that lead to denial, and I think focusing on the credit score is chasing the wrong rabbit trail. So I'm not disagreeing that we may have seen high FICO profiles be rejected as much as I'm saying that the FICO may not have been the controlling factor in those cases.
Some lenders are heavy into subprime while others are heavy into prime. My Capital One Quicksilver is a card that is sometimes issued to subprime borrows and might even be bucketed, but others such as mine weren't bucketed, even though they might start with a lower limit. (My card started as a Platinum card in 2009 and a $1K limit; was product-changed to Quicksilver; and has grown to $30K.) The My FICO thread about how Capital One uses Asset-Based Securities as part of their lending model discusses two elements of how Capital One might look at consumers with high FICO. First, (in message one), it states that they like to hang onto customers who started out in a subprime tranche card but who have grown their scores significantly, which improves the profitability of that tranche as a whole. But then, it also theorizes (message 4) that they normally FAVOR subprime customers since they are more profitable. I'm not sure I agree with that, especially since Capital One issues many cards specifically for the prime market (such as Savor and Venture X.) There is no such thing as a subprime Venture X approval because as a Visa Infinite, the minimum approval is $10K and no subprime borrower would qualify. Why would Capital One artificially limit the applicant pool on the other end by capping the FICO range?
Of note, that ABS thread was written in 2017, about the same time that Capital One started expanding even more into the superprime, premium card territory with cards like Savor and later the Venture X. But while subprime borrowers might be more profitable in some ways, they are also risky. Prime borrowers are still profitable but less risky, and generate more revenue by swipe fee volume and maybe somewhat of the annual fees. I think Capital One is playing both ends of the market in different ways.
I did an approvals forum search after one such discussion and came up with quite a few Venture X approvals from our members with FICO in the mid 700's to close to 850, so it appears to me that high FICO alone doesn't seem to lead to automatic denial.
I'd welcome any other discussion about the "High FICO" aversion from Capital One and supporting data points that might shed more light on the subject.
Funny story about the voluntary CLD, @FireMedic1. Heresy for My-FICO'ers!!! 
@Janneman wrote:
Sorry, but its true that Cap1 does NOT approve this particular card to those who already have too many open/active revolving accounts which is based on my personal knowledge, experience and extensive dig on this matter. For the last 2 years I did a very extensive dig on this card and found on other sites that too many people were denied for this card even though most of them stated that their score was between 835-848...and income even up to $1M....Some were running 500 fortune companies....and one was the CEO of Deutches bank...None of them had aggressively seeking credit behavior as they get one card in 8 months or so for the last couples of years. I found all these info on 4-5 different sites similar to this.
All my dig led me to a dp that if someone would have 19 or more open/active revolving accounts then it would be an instant denial for this card. A few people were able to get this card despite of having over 19 open accounts but the percentage of those are less than 1%...I thought I might fall under that 1% if I would apply for it and did apply for this card last year in December when my score was 821, utilization was less than 1% ...and totally clean and thick profile...Right away I got an instant denial and same reason was given- having too many open revolving accounts.
All I could say is- if someone would have 25 or more open/active revolving accounts, then 99.99 there would be a denial for this card no matter how good score, profile, income are or whatever. Up to 23 accounts, there might be 1% chance. I knew that I had 99% chances of denial because of this reason when I applied, but I gambled anyway because I did want this card very badly. Again, too many high profiled-people were denied for this card based on my reading of their experiences on other sites. If you have less than 21 accounts then it could go either way but at least have a better chance than 1-2%.....Hope, my such experience and knowledge might help you to understand it. This info was based on my own experience, knowledge and observation on this matter on various sites....
Interesting theory about the number of open accounts being considered by Capital One, @Janneman. This would make more common-sense to me than a high FICO limiting the approval, since a cardholder with high FICO but lots of cards is less likely to put heavy spend on the new card and therefore generate less profits. Or this might be a way for Capital One to screen out those sub-churners with a lot of cards who don't plan to keep the card, pay the fee, and use it for the long-haul. Just a variation of the x/24 or x/12 strategy. If your numbers are correct, my number of open personal accounts would be borderline for approval, regardless of recent new accounts.
@coldfusion wrote:
I'm going to go with recent credit seeking as the real reason for your failed preapproval. They did SP my EQ report.
Thanks, @coldfusion! This is more from what I expected in a denial when I tested the preapproval. I have added a lot of cards recently. They just threw me for a loop with the way the rejection was worded and it made me wonder. Perhaps, I will wait until right before I leave the garden and run the preapproval again ... for science! 
If I get preapproved, we would know the answer was recent credit-seeking, not total credit accounts or limits.
@GZG wrote:
what do the pre-approval links for the Venture/Savor cards say?
use the pre-approval links found on the Savor/Venture pages themselves, not the generic pre-approval link
https://www.capitalone.com/credit-cards/preapprove/u/?landingPage=venture
https://www.capitalone.com/credit-cards/preapprove/u/?landingPage=savor
I also get 'too many revolving accounts' but that's far from the primary reason they're likely denying my pre-approval for the venture x
I would agree with @coldfusion that it's the new accounts, or maybe Cap1 doesn't like that they already have given you 30k
if you get SUB card offers on those other pre-approvals above, I would be much more confident in a future app
I imagine you're not being offered a venture X PC because your QS is a MC?
Do you have any of your reports frozen? Surprised they pulled Exp when they typically pull EQ, might be a location thing
Thanks again for the link and the reply, @GZG.
Yes, my QS is a MC so Capital One has never offered me a Venture X or even a Savor. My upgrades have always been Venture One or original Venture.
My reports are not frozen. My EX file gets a lot of abuse where I live for some reason, so I'm not surprised it was referenced. Many of my lenders pull EX.
I don't think the issue is the $30K I already have since I've seen them be much more generous with profiles consistent with mine, and relative to my other lenders that is a conservative figure.
I hadn't run Capital One preapprovals for awhile until I saw your specific Venture X link since their preapprovals for me have always been unimpressive. I've never been offered a preapproval on a Savor, for example, or Venture X. Today, I ran it again as you asked and qualified for:
- Quicksilver Rewards "for good credit" - no AF
- Savor ONE Rewards "for good credit" - no AF
- Venture ONE Rewards "for good credit" - no AF
So they didn't even offer me the original Venture! Still, that does make one think that there are some differing underwriting standards at-play for that Venture X than their other cards. Maybe some other forum members could run their preapproval on both links and we could compare notes.