I had a purchased a month long premium account a couple times. But I am like a Ice, a couple hours a day is about my limit of playing time. When I had the premium account I felt I needed to play every day or I would be just throwing money away. Now I have switched to buying a premium account only on the days when I can spend most of day playing. Being Premium does increase the rate of earning credits and XP quite a bit, but I have 12 tanks in my garage ranging from tier 2 - 8. When I loose some credits on the high tier stuff I just run my tier Vs and VIs. My low tier tanks also have 100% crews, I can really dominate some of the low tier matches. I also use gold to demount equipment for use on other tanks.

I trained one crew with gold. It was nice, but now I just train them to 75% with credits. I usually buy new high tier tanks with out crews. I train my crews in the Elite'd tier V and VI tanks. By the time I am ready to purchase a higher tier tank they are trained to 100% with typically 50%-70% of their first secondary skill. They don't loose their skills when you transfer and retrain them in another tank, their secondary skills just don't advance until they reach 100%.

This weekend is half price equipment and double credits for the tanks used in Market Garden. Check the WOT site for details.