Editorial Policy
A short, specific account of how an article gets from idea to publish — and what we’ll and won’t do along the way.
Sources we cite
For any factual claim in a card review, we prefer first-party sources in this priority order:
- Issuer pages and rate-and-fee schedules. The Chase application page for Sapphire Preferred is the authority on Sapphire Preferred earn rates. Not Bankrate, not us — Chase. We link to the issuer page wherever we cite a fee, APR, or earn rate.
- Government and regulator sources. The CFPB (consumerfinance.gov), Federal Reserve consumer credit data, FDIC, and FTC publications for industry-wide claims, regulatory actions, and statistical context.
- Tax authorities for tax-adjacent claims. IRS publications on business expense deductibility, 1099-K thresholds, etc. State revenue departments for state-specific issues.
- Secondary press only when nothing else exists. Trade press (American Banker, Bloomberg, WSJ) for breaking news or industry reactions. We attribute and link.
If a claim can’t be sourced to one of the above, we either remove it or label it as our estimate with reasoning.
Verification process
Each article passes through these steps before it goes live:
- Numbers check. Every dollar amount, percentage, and APR in the draft is cross-checked against the linked source. If the source has changed since the previous version, the article updates with it.
- External-link audit. Every outbound link is opened to confirm it still resolves and points at the right page. Dead links and link-rot redirects are replaced or removed.
- Date and currency check. Articles include a “Last updated” date in the byline area. Bonus offers cited as “current” must be live on the issuer page at the time the article publishes; otherwise we frame them as historical context.
- Editorial judgment review. A second editor reads for places where the article sounds like marketing copy or fails to disclose a real downside. Articles get rewritten until the trade-offs are honest.
How we use AI tools
We use AI assistance (Google Gemini and similar models) for two specific tasks: research synthesis (pulling together what we already know about a card from multiple sources into a draft outline) and structural drafting (turning that outline into a first-pass article body). Every published article is then read, fact-checked, and rewritten by a human editor before it goes live.
What that means in practice:
- No claim ships unverified. AI is fluent and confident; it is also wrong about specific numbers more often than is comfortable. A human checks every number against issuer source before publish.
- Voice is rewritten. AI prose has tells — “in conclusion,” “navigate the complex landscape,” “robust ecosystem.” We strip those. Articles you read here have been through a hand pass.
- Opinions are human. The “what I’d skip” / “bottom line” judgment sections of every article are written by a human editor. AI can describe a card; it can’t tell you why the Capital One Venture X actually beats Sapphire Reserve for a $60K/year traveler who doesn’t fly United.
We don’t think AI-assisted publishing is something to hide. We do think pretending it’s not happening is a credibility problem. The disclosure is here so readers can decide how much weight to give the article.
Update cadence
- Bonus offers, fees, APRs: Reviewed at minimum quarterly; updated immediately when we notice a change.
- Category multipliers and rewards rates: Reviewed when the issuer announces a refresh, or quarterly otherwise.
- Transfer-partner ratios: Reviewed at the announcement of any change; we don’t carry a stale ratio after the issuer has moved it.
- Older roundup articles (“Best X 2025”): Rewritten for the new year, not just date-changed. If a 2024 piece references a bonus that’s now historical, we frame it as historical or pull the article from indexing.
The “Last updated” date in each article’s byline is the date of its most recent verification pass, not just the original publish date.
Corrections
If you find a factual error — a wrong fee, an expired offer cited as current, a miscalculated break-even, a broken issuer link — please email through the contact page with the article URL and the specific claim. Material corrections are made within 5 business days and noted in a “Correction” line at the top of the article so you can see what changed.
Non-material edits (typos, formatting, broken images) are made silently.
Conflicts of interest
We hold no positions in publicly traded issuers and accept no compensation from any card issuer in exchange for editorial coverage. Our financial relationship with issuers runs exclusively through affiliate networks (Awin, Impact, etc.) that pay us when readers are approved for products via our links.
This relationship influences which cards we have the time and incentive to write about — there’s no commission on covering a card that no network represents. It does not influence the conclusions of any individual article. If a card we’re paid to recommend is actually a bad choice for a given reader, the article says so.
Editorial independence from advertisers
Google AdSense ads served on this site are placed contextually by Google and are not curated by us. We don’t accept editorial direction from advertisers, and we don’t decline coverage of competing products. If a card we’d recommend is from an issuer that doesn’t advertise on the site, we still recommend it.
What we won’t publish
- Reviews of cards we haven’t actually compared against issuer documentation.
- “Get rich” or credit-repair claims. The category is real-money decisions, not get-out-of-debt schemes.
- Sponsored content disguised as editorial. If a brand pays for placement, the page is labeled “Sponsored” at the top in its own block.
- Personally identifiable financial advice. We can explain how a card works; we can’t tell you whether to apply for it.
Questions about this policy
If something here is unclear or you think a specific article violates it, email us via the contact page and we’ll address it directly.