Weekly limit ran out even though I never hit the 5-hour limit

I’ve written about this before, but here we go again — Codex usage limits run out faster than expected. I tried optimizing prompts: writing concisely without extra whitespace or line breaks, asking for conclusions only, no explanations — straight to the point. That actually works and can save a chunk of your quota, worth keeping in mind. I also tried dropping down to model 5.2, since the tasks were narrow — no complex problem-solving, just replacing specific code in specific lines. The difference wasn’t big: with model 5.5 the quota was gone in about 40 minutes, with 5.2 around an hour. In my case the bulk of the quota goes to frequent code checks, tests, project audits, and logging work maps — that’s unavoidable. The same old issue with limit blocking is still there too: when the weekly limit runs out early, access is blocked even though tokens still show on the balance. You simply can’t use them. I’m not alone — I’ve seen similar posts on the forum. The company’s response was to reset limits and hand out a couple of bonus hours. Meanwhile, any unused balance just rolls back into OpenAI’s pocket next month.