I joined the program, submitted a new "Feedback" on the website, under "Miles&Smiles program" and "Membership processes". I attached to the webform a screenshot of my digital Gold card from the app, and a jpg photo of my passport. Within 24 hours they requested the last 2 months of flight activity on my BA Gold card. I submitted my Miles&More activity for the last few months, too, since I travel a lot already on StarAliance. I suggest you submit that with your initial request to speed things up. Within a few hours my request was approved. It came with the same conditions as broadly advertised: 1 x international flight with TK within 4 months to extend Elite to 1 year; 15,000 Status Miles with TK within that 1 year to extend to 2 years after the match.