What’s the general consensus about when it makes sense to do 30K+$60 for an IC night? Here is my specific case:

I have 360,000 points. I have a New York trip planned this Sept and a DC trip expected in spring 2012. I would like to stay at the new IC Time Square in NYC and Willard in DC.

For every trip I need 6 nights, so 12 nights in total. I’ll need 480K points and I am 120K short. But my earning ability in the next 2 years is not great.

I figured I have these 2 options:

1. Burn 240K for the NYC trip. I have 120K left to pay for 3 nights. For the other 3 in DC, I pay $750 (assuming I can find a rate at $250 for Willard; right now I see an Advanced purchase rate at $187). This way I am not spending any cash upfront, and reserve the option to somehow earn more points before 2012.
2. Plan to do 30K+$60 throughout. That means 360K points which I have + $720. This way I don’t need to count on the rate being at $250 at Willard.

Either way the value per point comes out about the same. There are other variations but let’s not get into the semantics too much, as my question for the fellow priority club devotees is more generic:

When does 30K+$60 do make sense? Only in the situation where people don’t have enough points, or did I miss some other important consideration?

A side question by the way: I can’t find any reward availability for the IC Time Square. Has anyone had any luck? I asked this in the IC Time Square thread but didn’t get an answer.