I almost certainly have to take a trip end of Feb (MAN-CMB-KUL-MAN). At the moment I am Silver and need 9,000 tiermiles to get to gold (which I will easily do before my cut off). If I book the flights (all Y) at the moment then I will get 7875 so will not get to gold until the following trip. Last time I flew MAN-CMB-MAN it was a fairly late booking and so a higher fare bucket and so I got more miles.

My dilemma is do I book the flight now (or as soon as everything is confirmed) and get a cheaper price for my employer or do I wait another couple of weeks (can easily do that on the basis of I am waiting for confirmation of whether I should stay longer to do X, Y and Z) and risk (hope) that the cheap tickets have gone and so I will get more tier miles.

At the moment I am waiting for the travel agent to come back to me so I have a legit reason for not having booked yet but I expect her to get back to me Mon / Tue this week.

When I am gold it will save my employer money as I will have lounge access and so will not be claiming for drinks / snacks / Maharba lounge access on 4hr+ connections in DXB / departure airports so there is business reason in getting me to gold sooner rather than later.