Incidentally. It's not always so clear cut.

Up until now I've earned silver through normal work/personal travel patterns.

A combination of reduced international work, less affordable (or at least good value IMO POUGs) meant that for this collection year, maintaining it seemed unlikely. When the changes to BAEC discount TP earning came along it pretty much put a nail in the coffin.

So, I booked a TP run originally just to get silver for another 2 years, and see where I stood once that expired. As it turned out I booked enough to get quite close to gold. So I will likely head for that now.

Outside of the TP run.. I'm pretty much definitely making at least 4 SH+ trips per year, before work travel comes in, that's entirely variable. I've been through times of Euro commuting week in week out for almost a year to pretty much no travel aside from personal for almost a year.

Maybe I'm not the right one to ask though, since it will be my first TP run ever..