The ranking algorithm on that site is super messed up. A million posts on the front page from 2 weeks ago with 1 point. Page 3 is full of posts from 6 hours ago with 1 point.
They have free GPUs, and the account is free. Doing fast.ai currently on a free GPU. The extra charges are if you want to upgrade, like needing more storage.
I don't think it's strange to have to write a ticket to get a GPU auth. Google Cloud Platform requires the same, can take days to approve, and is more expensive and WAY less intuitive. Plus I've had ton of glitches working with GCP where they said they approved my request but didn't -- multiple times.