I have never heard of a card that wouldn't let you decrease the CL but I have been told this twice via SM.

Has anyone else ever experienced this ?

I am traveling for work and don't have the card with me, when I return home I will call and /or chat to see if I get a different response.

Why would they want to do this? Clearly only done to manipulate the limits (to get another bonus) or perhaps someone who has a spending problem (in which case they should simply cancel you). The fact that Chase allows you to transfer CL between cards doesn't mean that it's good business sense.

I have to ask why a person would even make a reply such as yours without asking questions ?

Anyway, no spending problem, not a dime in debt including 2 houses. I pay all my bills in full the first day after the statement closes without exception.

I ALWAYS lower my CL's on every card I get after I make the spend. Thus far I have churned over 70 personal and business cards without one call to recon...............all instant approval, there has never been a need for me to transfer a CL ever to get a card.

So basically every accusation you made is false.

Now back to my QUESTION.

I do not use my Capital One credit card because the limit is so small, that it is not worth my while. My limit with Cap 1 is $12.5k. With Amex, Fidelity etc $25k. Sams Master Card $35k and UNFCU Visa is $45k. The funniest part is I have a balance of almost 6 figure amount with Capital One. Capital one has the industry worst ability to price risk. As a former junk/sub-prime lender, that is their constituency.

So why in the world would you want to decrease your credit limit. It is up to you how much of the limit you want to use. I am not getting your point here.

If you read the reply above this you will know why. My method works for not having to call recon and getting approved for over a dozen cards per year, every year. Last year I got 18 cards, not one call to recon, moving a CL, etc.

I am a card churner...............From once the spend is made for the bonus the card goes away and never gets used again.

I already spent $3k on Cap one, got the $460 in free $$ and spent that..........the card is just waiting until it's 9 months old to be cancelled.

Anyway, maybe someone will respond with an answer instead of questioning my motives which have already been explained

My guess is few people have experienced this because relatively few people on the board regularly ask to lower their credit limit and probably fewer still do it with Capital One because they don't have that many competing offers that this community is interested in (we are all card churners; some just play the game differently). Call Capital One. It could be that the SM agents just don't have the authority to reduce CL or it could be that your card has the minimum credit limit they allow for that particular card. In any event, it is hardly worth getting flummoxed over.

Thanks for explaining the reason. I think your best bet at getting to this answer will be on the creditboards web site. That is where the pros and gurus of gaming the system including the credit score reside. Good luck.

I lowered my 10 year old Cap1 from $30k to $5k about 6 months ago via SM with no problems. Until I started looking for new cards, I had no idea my Cap1 was that high. They just kept raising it and raising it. I just told them my current limit and the desired limit and they lowered it.

And I completely understand why you lower it! Helps so much with the instant approvals! And why should any company get to decide that your available credit must be with them!

Thanks for a reply from someone who lowered their limit and also gets what I and many others here do ( check out the Citi Hilton cards threads as it's discussed often) to help with instant approvals, 100% success rate so far.

Up North.....Fico 824........All I wanted was an answer about Cap one. I got 18 cards last year, all with instant approval.....my methods work fine for me.

I was upset over the replies I got suggesting I had a spending problem or wanted to lower my CL for any other reason than future instant approvals

All I wanted to know if it was a Cap one policy not to lower CL's

Please re-read my initial post, you apparently missed the part about manipulating credit line. This is exactly what you are doing. Reducing your line on one card so that you can churn another card for the bonus.

As noted above there is no benefit to CapOne to permit card churning but if they let you do it then by all means feel free to do so.

CapOne generally targets low end customers (cf. Amex high end) so under your self-defined qualifications you clearly don't meet their target demographic.

You asked a question - you got the answer. You can fee free to disagree with CapOne's reasoning for not empowering CSRs to lower your CL but the logic is irrefutable.

Check out the Citi Exec card thread sometime. Nearly every person who churns those lowers the CL on every card after meeting the spend, and they do so for the reason OP states.

I can think of some reasons why Capital One would want to do it. For one thing, keeping customers happy in a very competitive environment is generally a good idea (as evidenced by the fact that every other cc company I'm aware of will lower your limit upon request -- including Capital One if post #8 is accurate). For another, if they don't lower the limit, he can achieve his objective by simply cancelling the card today. That would hurt Capital One more than agreeing to lower his limit because it would guarantee Capital One would receive no future revenue from him on that card.

The notion that Cap One shouldn't lower his limit in order to prevent him from getting another bonus is a little convoluted -- the easiest way to prevent him from getting another bonus would be to simply deny him another bonus whenever he applies again. They could set their policies to be one bonus across all cards per x months / years / lifetime.

He asked a question, you answered like someone who is (I'm being charitable) having a bad day.

I am familiar with that thread. Relatively few people are still churning Citi Exec and the operative word in that sentence was regularly. Obviously there are specific deals where you may modify strategy. In any event, I specifically noted that few are likely to have experience with Capital One because they don't have that many competing offers. Typically when people ask to reduce credit lines it is because they are worried that they are approaching the max that a particular issuer will extend. The OP just seems to lower lines as a prophylactic.

I understand that, but it is the internet. I'd just roll you eyes at any off-topic remarks and move on. At least it bumps up the thread.

I have also had this experience. The gal in customer service explained to me that it had to do with a particular card I received, no credit limit reductions were allowed. Her suggestion was to cancel the card, and apply for a different one, which is what I did.