Hm. I think you may be right. To be quite honest, I was transferring my entire Sims 3 collection over to Origin at the time and had contacted EA support many a time over to complete this task (not to mention reviving an over a decade old PC to get the codes).
I think they did mention it was no longer offered and I was not allowed to redeem Pirates and Nobles, but I was allowed the base as a part of this whole ordeal (though I was told the code matched Medieval). It would not surprise me if it was pity, though, and I was very grateful.
