Ben makes a fair point though, which is that credit card rewards CAN be objectively valued which impacts the ability to skew coverage.

You can, of course, influence people in a particular direction by the volume of coverage you give one product over another but that is another issue.

Trust me from my own experience. Readers are not stupid and readers know a bad deal when they see one. I can pretty well predict what sort of traction an offer will get when I write about it. I also know that trying to promote stuff which I know is rubbish and, more importantly, that the readers will know is rubbish is pointless - you don't get any conversions anyway and the readers stop trusting you so you get a poorer response when the next genuinely good deal comes along.

If Ben gets the same approaches I get, you will also find that he has quietly had a hand in defining the benefits packages offered by certain cards. I have a meeting next week with a UK travel provider which wants my (unpaid) advice on what they should put into a new premium product - and the more attractive I can persuade them to make it, the more everyone benefits. Yes, I can sell more cards but readers will have a very attractive product to apply for.