Last reviewed 2026-09-02

Editorial policy

This page describes how everything on balancetransfercalculator.com is sourced, checked, updated and corrected. It applies to the calculator, the methodology page and every written article.

Sourcing

Facts come from primary sources or they do not get published. In practice that means four kinds of material:

• Regulation. The Truth in Lending Act and Regulation Z, cited by section. Payment allocation above the minimum is 12 CFR 1026.53. Promotional rate protections, including the point that only an account 60 or more days delinquent can lose a promotional rate, are 12 CFR 1026.55. Advertising rules, including trigger terms and deferred interest wording, are 12 CFR 1026.16.
• Federal data. The Federal Reserve G.19 consumer credit series for average APRs, and the CFPB Consumer Credit Card Market Report for fee levels and market behaviour.
• Issuer documents. Cardmember agreements and pricing and terms pages, read directly rather than through a comparison site.
• Named surveys. Where an industry study is the best available figure, it is named, with its sample size and publication date attached.

Every cited figure carries a retrieval date, because a fee range read in 2026 is not a fee range in 2028. Nothing is sourced to another calculator or comparison page, and no statistic goes up without a document behind it. Where a figure could not be confirmed from a primary source, the page says so instead of rounding the uncertainty away.

Card names are kept away from rates and fees. Naming a card next to a specific APR, a fee or the words "0%" pulls a page into Regulation Z 1026.16 advertising territory, which brings obligations this site does not want to meet halfway. Figures appear as ranges with a source, such as fees of roughly 3% to 5% or intro windows of 12 to 21 months. Issuer policies that carry no rate, such as transfer windows or same-issuer restrictions, may be named with the issuer.

Update cadence

• Quarterly. The calculator's default APR, fee and intro period are re-checked against the latest Federal Reserve G.19 release and current CFPB reporting. When a default moves, the methodology page and the retrieval dates move with it.
• Before any card is named. Issuer specifics, including transfer windows, fee minimums and eligibility restrictions, are re-read from the issuer's own current documents on the day of publishing. Anything that cannot be confirmed there is left out.
• On regulatory change. A change to Regulation Z or to CFPB guidance triggers a review of every page relying on it.
• Visible dates. Every page shows a last reviewed date. That date changes only when a person has actually re-read the page, not when the site is rebuilt.

Corrections

Errors get fixed in the open. A correction to a fact or a figure is made in the text and noted at the foot of the page with the date and what changed. An error in the calculation engine is fixed in code, covered by a test so the same fault cannot return, and noted on the affected pages. Typographical fixes and rewording that does not alter meaning are made silently.

Corrections can be sent to [email protected]. The contact page explains what to include.

Independence

At launch this site has no affiliate relationships and carries no advertising. If that changes, the rule is fixed and stated in the advertiser disclosure: compensation never touches the calculator's arithmetic, never changes a verdict, and never buys a mention. No advertiser, issuer or network reviews content before it is published, and no page is written because a commercial partner asked for it.

Calculators and testing

The worked examples inside articles are produced by the same calculation engine that runs the tool, not typed in by hand, so a change to the engine cannot leave stale arithmetic sitting in an article. The engine has unit tests covering payment allocation, fee treatment, intro period expiry, posting lag and the break-even outputs, and its results are checked against amortisation worked by hand and against issuer statement behaviour. Examples that use invented numbers are labelled hypothetical.

AI assistance

Drafting and editing here are assisted by AI tools. Nothing produced that way is published unedited. Every figure, citation, regulatory reference and formula is verified by a person against the primary source before it goes live, and any sentence that cannot be traced back to a document is cut. AI is used for drafting and structure, never as a source of facts.