And we are glad you found us, too. Welcome on board Squawk7000, welcome to the BA forum on Flyertalk and I hope you will find this board both useful and fascinating. Please continue to post here, the more the merrier.

The only extra comment I can make is that in broad terms it's best to hit a new status level as soon into your membership year as you can, which I guess is the other way to look at you question. At the point of promotion you remain Silver for this membership year and the whole of next, so up to 2 years if you are quick off the mark.