About us
We're an answer company that happens to publish journalism.
CreditCardAnswers exists because the honest answer to most credit card questions — no, that card isn't worth it for you — is the one answer the rest of the internet can't afford to give. Almost every card site is paid per approved application. We aren't paid for any of it. Answers, not pitches.
What we actually do
You ask a credit card question. We answer it with the tradeoffs, the arithmetic, and the part that argues against the decision you were leaning toward. The same set of facts gets presented four ways — straight, explained, optimized, and challenged — because the way a question gets framed changes which answer sounds obvious.
The news side of the site exists to feed the answers. When an issuer changes a fee or guts a benefit, we don't write a press-release rewrite. We write what changed and what it means for the person holding the card.
Who writes it
Everything is published under one byline: the CCA Research Desk. There are no invented reporters here, no stock-photo headshots, no fake credentials. If you see a name on a card site you can't find anywhere else, that's usually why.
Analysis is drafted with AI assistance and reviewed against primary documents before it publishes. Where a figure appears, it traces back to an issuer's own terms, a regulator, or a credit bureau — listed at the bottom of the page so you can check us. We label AI involvement rather than hiding it.
The accountable human is Randy Petersen — founder of FlyerTalk and BoardingArea, publisher of InsideFlyer, four decades in the miles-and-points industry. He sets the editorial standards above and puts his name on what the desk publishes.
How we're funded
No affiliate links. No sponsored placements. No paid card rankings. No "best card" list that quietly reorders itself by commission. If that ever changes, it will be disclosed at the top of every affected page before the first dollar is taken — not in a footer.
The practical consequence: nothing on this site gets more prominent because it pays better, and we have no reason to talk you into a $795 annual fee.
What we won't do
- Publish a single point valuation as if it were a fact. When value matters, we show a range — cash floor, realistic redemption, aspirational redemption — because one cents-per-point number is an opinion, and it's the number the industry uses to make bad math look good.
- Invent statistics, cards, or engagement numbers to look bigger than we are.
- Sell, share, or upload your wallet. It stays in your browser, full stop.
- Pretend a coupon-book credit you'll never use is worth its face value.
Your data
My Wallet stores your cards and preferences in your own browser's local storage. There's no account, no sign-up, and nothing to breach on our side — see the privacy page for the specifics, including what does and doesn't get sent when you ask a question.
What's the answer?
Ask us something specific. That's the whole product.