Can I award a bounty to a comment owner?

Question

I've seen the following in the Article about bounties under "How is a bounty awarded?":

The bounty period lasts 7 days. Bounties must have a minimum duration of at least 1 day. After the bounty ends, there is a grace period of 24 hours to manually award the bounty. Simply click the bounty award icon next to each answer to permanently award your bounty to the answerer. (You cannot award a bounty to your own answer.)

However, what if my question was resolved by a comment and not by an answer? Is it possible to award the bounty to the comment owner?

Should I ask the comment owner to add it as an answer and then award them the bounty?

Answer 1

Is it possible to award the bounty to the comment owner?

No. That's why answers to a question need to be ... answers, not comments.

Should I ask the comment owner to add it as a reply and then award him the bounty?

Yes, that's a good course of action. Of course, one needs to keep in mind that answers need to substantially answer the question, not merely being a pointer towards solving your problem (which is a common reason to post comments instead).

If the comment owner does not react, that's a bit of a pity, but you can always write an answer yourself (paying attribution, of course), which might be useful to future visitors with the same problem. You can't award the bounty to it, though. Comments are meant to be temporary, real solutions should always be in answers.