It's clear the BAEC look more favourably on members who have a history of Gold with the club.
No idea if the OP has ever been BA Gold before but if not it doesn't surprise me that he was knocked back. That would open the flood gates for all silvers to get Gold without achieving the required amount of tier points.
Having said that the BAEC rules do seem to be a lot more relaxed nowadays and they do indeed give away Gold for nothing as we saw with recent promotions of status matching with BD.