Marriott is sending Air France-KLM Flying Blue elite members an offer to sign up for a new Marriott Rewards account with instant gold status. The offer includes triple Flying Blue miles through June 30. Gold status should last for the first program year of enrollment.

Signing up through this offer will generate an account number right away, but the actual signup will that 3-5 days to process, and it won’t be possible to create an online account until that’s completed.

So perhaps there is a process in place for checking Flying Blue accounts against elite status, although this isn’t clear, so it remains to be seen whether anyone can use the link to sign up with Gold status.  As they say, “your mileage may vary.”