I just signed up as well, and could not get a gold bump. I have about 9000 eqp worth of travel in the next 3 weeks and asked if that was enough to get gold. nope. I was advised to do a gold challenge, and then when I hit it, call back and ask for a platinum challenge upgrade. they said that it was EXTREMELY rare for somebody to get gold without a really good reason. harumph!

I will now wait until I fly over 5K eqp and then call back and ask if they can do this for me.