Lifetime Gold: what is the nitty gritty?

Congratulations and welcome, Andy!

-Brad

I qualified for Lifetime Gold last Thursday - 10 years since turning Gold and a lot of flying since then.

No e-mail to tell me and no change to my online account (it still says I need tier points to renew Gold in November).

I've just spoken to Flying Club who said their system is showing me as being a Lifetime Gold member and that they no longer send out new cards / packs to be environmentally friendly!

So seems like I'd have no way of knowing without asking...

Since one way to qualify for lifetime gold is to hold gold status for 10 years + 7500 TPs, and now that you can actually earn TPs and gold status via award tickets, does this mean it is (technically) possible to earn lifetime gold just purely by using award tickets?

As far as I am aware, the revenue requirement is for qualification via the 1m miles route only.