Originally Posted by
Willbur
Issue being is that it isn't an auto upgrade to the Visa Sig. Takes a lot of work on the back-end and isn't guaranteed by any means. My wife continues to be able to get new Alaska cards while I can't. Even opened a BoA account a few months ago to try to increase my standing with them but apparently that didn't help. Decided to grab the travel rewards card with $200 after $1k spend just because I'd already wasted the HP and wanted to at least come away with something.
Well, the problem is likely total credit limit across all our BofA cards, so by appllying for yet another BofA card you care about less, just to use the HP, you're making the situation
worse for yourself!
Have you been lower credit limit as much as possible
before closing any BofA cards? If not, your credit limit that remains on a card when you close a BofA card stays "locked away" for
over a year 
. (Even when you lower the credit limit first as a separate step, it still can take months, but that's way less than "over a year".)
That's why the more BofA cards you open and close (without drastically reducing the credit limit before you close), you just make it harder for yourself to get approved for an Alaska signature card later on.
So you need to decide what's more important to you, getting Alaska miles
or "using up" HPs. BofA won't deny you for having wasted an HP, but they may deny you (for an Alaska Sig card)
because you chose to
not waste the HP by applying for an "at least something" card.