Pokerstars VIP silver level. Worth having??

I've very nearly given up on Tilt for the time being, been favouring Stars ever since making my first deposit!
Just a quick question though. I think i'm averaging 600-800 FPP's a month, and silver is only 1000ish. Is it worth putting in a couple of extra hours to reach this level? What kind of benefits do you get apart from earning points twice as fast? I'm happy with my current level, rolled at around $100 from my initial $40, so swapping between the $1 Multi table SnG's and the $3 SnG's depending on my mood.
So what level are people on here at with Stars? I'm still showing shiny Bronze, but thats fine for now unless i'm missing something big with the Silver status!
Cheers in advance. Kev.

You're never goiing to reach silver playing low limits. I dabbled quite a bit in 50nl and 25nl with staking money this month as was still falling quite short with 1k hands in each, plus 4k hands in 10nl (about 600 short to be exact :P)

I think the closest you can get with $100 is to play 10k-ish (I'm running at .15 vpp/h I think) hands of .5/1 flhe, but that's a stretch on the bankroll management scale.

Chuck suggests that altering your play for less than gold (maybe even platinum) is not recommended, as Stars' VIP program is very top heavy.

yeah pokerstars fpp tiers aren't worth it until platinum+ (and arguably not until 'nova). i mean they're nice little perks of course, but they're not worth chasing mindlessly after - all you get iirc is some crappy freerolls, a few more things in the fpp store, and a small fpp multiplier for silver.

That is not really true, I reached silver level playing 10NL. You just have to play about 40k hands....

Stars ran a promotion recently for UK players in which they had to get 500 points in the month for Silver, which I just about achieved in 10 days (evenings and a weekend) playing some pl omaha (lost about $20 doing so..)

The only real advantage as far as I can tell is the 100fpp VIP mtt every Saturday- $30k prizepool and fairly easy to cash (cashed in 2/3) - $8 minimum with 800 paid out of about 4k players if I remember rightly (made over $50 from the 2 I cashed in, so worth losing the $20!.

I'd say this is worth it if you cant find much use for your fpps and you're getting pretty close to silver, but not really worth going out of your way for, unless as others say you can get to gold/ platinum etc. (gold has the $100k monthly freeroll which has got to be worth it)

One thing worth having silver for is the $16/1k fpp bonus. This month there is $8/500, $16/1k, and $160/10k...you have to be silver + and and can only use each bonus once per month. These have only been listed as special offers for the last few months, but I think/hope they will become regular bonuses. I may just save up for the 10k now, since I'll be half way there by the time I put in enough hands for silver.

D'wilius- surely you're better off playing the $30k for 100fpp than using your fpps for cash?

Dont really earn more than 100 fpp per week, so makes more sense for me anyway...

In response to OP's question. Profit >>> fpps. I started out chasing bonuses / VIP benefits in the beginning but I quickly came to realize that profit should come first and foremost. VIP benefits should be considered as secondary unless you are a heavy volume player at which point you should be much higher than silver star.

Using fpps for tournaments takes time so you have to take that into consideration. If you can convert fpps directly into cash, that is 0 time invested whereas if you play in a tournament, you have to get back your normal ROI / hour played.

A couple suggestions for good ROI for fpps:
1. Monthly turbo takedown (at least the last two months): You can late register for an hour at which point it is pretty close to the bubble and you can pretty much fold into the money. I didn't actually just completely fold my way into the money but I think anyone who last minute late registered and just folded all of their hands could have gotten $50. This equates to $.025/fpp which is >> $.016/fpp, the highest achievable cash return (at SN level). This may change in the future because there were so few entrants this month for the turbo takedown meaning they may alter the format in the future. However, if they do, this is MAJOR free money in my opinion.
2. The 210fpp satellite: 6/20 people get a $11 tournament dollars (after unregistering). The entry is an equivalent rate of $.0157/fpp which is slightly less than $.016/fpp but the competition is so soft that I think that cashing 50% of the time is easily achievable which results in a high ROI for a relatively small amount of time invested.