Actually, the way I understand it is that you would drop to Silver and then have to re-qualify for Gold.

Look at the T&C's on Skywards.com



Quote:
(c) In your second and subsequent years of retaining a tier, you have exactly 12 months to retain your tier, count backing back to your last review date

You qualified 02 August 2010 - so you have until 02 Aug 2011 to requalify. The way you might address this is book and pay for the Sept ticket in Aug and then approach Skywards to see if they will grant you any leeway.