why not buy another 10k priority club points to bring u to gold? good pointbreaks are a bit thin on the ground for the summer, but this is to be expected for the high season. gold status means u receive a 10% bonus for each $ spent on a hotel stay, including expenses billed to ur room (such as meals, mini-bar and phone calls).

priority club is also running a promo to the end of august which gives 2k points for every second qualifying night. instead of 2k priority club points, u can choose 500 bonus miles for ur preferred ffp if u set ur preferences accordingly.

http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/pc/...p/q208/17.html

admittedly, this promo isn't very generous and, if u're paying for urself, then priceline or hotwire might work better for u (we tried hotwire for the first time earlier this month and were allocated a room in the hyatt regency montreal - excellent location, shame about the slow front desk service - for less than the cost of the cheapest nearby holiday inn).

ian.