Last year around late December, I was 5 flights short of Gold. I needed to go from STR to NCE for christmas, then AMS for new year's eve, then immediately back to work on Jan 2nd.
The "cheapest" for me was to take a STR->AMS round trip, and AMS->SXB->NCE round-trip. Taking into account the 4h delay and refund due to a technical issue on the plane at SXB, that was an affordable entry into Gold in the end.