diff --git a/src/Composer/Repository/Vcs/GitHubDriver.php b/src/Composer/Repository/Vcs/GitHubDriver.php
index 8019e194c..5c05a218b 100644
--- a/src/Composer/Repository/Vcs/GitHubDriver.php
+++ b/src/Composer/Repository/Vcs/GitHubDriver.php
@@ -325,7 +325,27 @@ class GitHubDriver extends VcsDriver
                         return $this->attemptCloneFallback();
                     }
 
-                    $gitHubUtil->authorizeOAuthInteractively($this->originUrl, 'Your GitHub credentials are required to fetch private repository metadata (<info>'.$this->url.'</info>)');
+                    $scopes_issued = array();
+                    $scopes_needed = array();
+                    if (!is_null($headers = $e->getHeaders())) {
+                        // Check if X-OAuth-Scopes and X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes should let us in...
+                        foreach ($headers as $header) {
+                            $k = substr($header, 0, strpos($header, ":"));
+                            $v = trim(substr($header, strpos($header, ":")+1));
+                            switch ($k) {
+                            case 'X-OAuth-Scopes':
+                                $scopes_issued = explode(" ", $v);
+                                break;
+                            case 'X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes':
+                                $scopes_needed = explode(" ", $v);
+                                break;
+                            }
+                        }
+                    }
+                    $scopes_failed = array_diff($scopes_needed, $scopes_issued);
+                    if (is_null($headers) || count($scopes_failed)) {
+                        $gitHubUtil->authorizeOAuthInteractively($this->originUrl, 'Your GitHub credentials are required to fetch private repository metadata (<info>'.$this->url.'</info>)');
+                    }
 
                     return parent::getContents($url);