Originally Posted by
Matt Drozdzynski
The main reason being that I have a number of trips scheduled for 2013 where having a gold status would come in handy, but yeah, I wouldn’t do 5 return flights just for the sake of it, hence looking for more creative ways

If that's the case, then if I were you, I would save the money that you would spend now on getting gold, and use it to upgrade yourself next year or buy Clubhouse access etc. Without knowing the details of your travel it is hard to generalise, but the extra cost of upgrading from economy to UC using miles can be surprisingly modest. (If you have miles, and if you can find reward seats, of course...)