2,500 Bonus Alaska Miles and Free Checked Bags

I got this email a few weeks ago, but I’ve been traveling and working so much, I’m just catching up on my offers.

The email contained an offer from Bank of America to Alaska Airline Visa Credit Card holders – it may or may not be a targeted offer.

The offer says:

GET 2,500 BONUS MILES WHEN YOU ACTIVATE THIS OFFER AND REDEEM MILES FOR AIR TRAVEL THROUGH SEPTEMBER 30, 2015.  

The terms state, among other things:

To be eligible for this offer, your account must be open with charging privileges and you must activate this offer by September 30, 2015. To qualify for 2,500 bonus miles, you must activate the offer then redeem existing miles for a flight through alaskaair.com by September 30, 2015.

I would like clarification – I believe the above means that you must activate the offer and redeem miles by September 30, 2015, but the flight may be after that date.

The email additionally states:

NEW! Free checked bag for Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® cardholders.

The first checked bag is free for you and up to 6 additional passengers (a total of 7 passengers including the primary cardholder) traveling on the same reservation as the primary cardholder.** Terms and conditions apply.

This is a nice benefit, but I note that the qualifying flights for this benefit are limited to “flights marketed by Alaska Airlines and operated by Alaska Airlines, Horizon Air, SkyWest or PenAir” and that “codeshare flights operated by other carriers are not eligible.”