How we research and check our guides
Every Accel Media guide follows the same path from question to published page. This page explains that process. It is a description of how we work, not a guarantee: rules and figures change, and our editorial standards explain what we can and can’t promise.
1. Start from the official source
Facts come from the organization that sets them:
- an airline’s contract of carriage, a hotel program’s terms or a card’s guide to benefits;
- a rental company’s policy pages;
- the IRS, the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the Federal Reserve.
We cite each source where the fact appears and record the date we read it. Each guide’s “About this guide” panel shows when its sources were last checked. We don’t use blogs, forums or search summaries as evidence. When a company doesn’t publish something, the guide says so (“not stated”) rather than guessing.
2. Draft, with AI assistance
Guides are researched and drafted with the help of AI tools. AI output isn’t treated as evidence. Every factual claim has to trace back to a source someone has actually read, and every calculation has to be worked again.
3. An independent fact-check
A separate check, done apart from the drafting, re-reads every cited source and compares each claim and number with what the source says now. It also recalculates every example and confirms that every link works. Problems are fixed before publication, and anything that can’t be verified is removed.
What the checks catch: real examples from November 2026.
- Citi transfer ratios. A draft said Citi doesn’t publish its transfer ratios. The fact-check found the ratios inside each partner’s expandable entry on Citi’s own page, so we added them and corrected an older guide that had made the same mistake.
- HSA limits for 2027. A draft said the IRS hadn’t published the 2027 HSA limits. The check found the revenue procedure that sets them, and we added the figures, clearly labeled as 2027.
- Unreadable sources. When a company’s pages refuse automated access, as some hotel and warehouse-club pages did, we don’t fill the gap from memory or secondary sites. The guide either leaves that fact out or waits until the source can be read.
4. A compliance review for money and insurance topics
Guides on investing, taxes, credit and insurance get a second, separate review. It looks for wording that could read as personal advice, a recommendation, a forecast or a promise. It also checks that the required notices and tax-year labels are present. Our investing site, Invest Insights, is reviewed again every month.
5. Publication and responsibility
Our Editor in Chief, Greg M., decides what is published and is responsible for it, including corrections. We are not financial advisers, tax professionals or attorneys, and no guide replaces advice for your own situation.
6. Keeping guides current
Sources are rechecked on a schedule, and figures that change by year carry the year they apply to. When something changes, we update the guide and its “sources checked” date. If we got something wrong, we say what changed; see corrections.
Spotted a problem?
Email hello [at] accel-media [dot] com (replace [at] with @ and [dot] with a period), with “Correction” and the page address in the subject line. A link to the official source helps.