12 month gold subscription not allowing games with gold etc even though it has been approved

To download the games have you made sure the console region matches your actual region ? Alternatively you could try and download the games via the Xbox.com website following this link
www.xbox.com/live/games-with-gold

Was the code for a full gold subscription (1 month, 3 month, or 12 months)? Or was it a gold trial? Trial cards will allow you to play online, but won't change your account to gold.

You'll have to buy a 12 month Gold Subscription online first... Otherwise, it will charge you by the month etc... or

support.xbox.com/.../cancel-xbox-live-gold-subscription

What type of gold subscription do you have? (12 month, monthly, etc.)

Since Ultimate includes Gold and Game Pass, if you already have those when you buy Ultimate, even use at trial, it cancels what you have and upgrades it to Ultimate as well. So your last 12 month subscription would have been cancelled when you used that trial and converted to Ultimate. In order to go back to just standard Gold, you'd have to either cancel your current Ultimate subscription or turn off auto-renewal and wait on it to end and then add new Gold subscription. However, Microsoft has ended 12 month subscriptions, so it would no longer be possible to purchase a $60 per year Gold subscription. You can still buy a 12 month prepaid code from a retailer.