Back in 2013 when Aegean was still offering an extremely easy route to “lifetime” Star Alliance Gold by only earning 19,000 qualifying miles, I took advantage of this to get Aegean Gold status. It was great times with priority boarding, security, checked bags and Star Alliance lounge access, even domestically!
In September 2014, after realizing that people were heavily taking advantage of this route to gain Star Alliance Gold easily without much effort to renew the status, Aegean made it harder to obtain Gold this way, requiring 24,000 qualifying miles flown on Aegean or 48,000 qualifying miles flown on Aegean and Star Alliance partners. Furthermore, Aegean notified existing Golds that their status would actually expire at some point. All existing Gold customers would be transferred to the new Gold Tier when the program changed in November 2014.