I acquired the 250,000 point threshold needed for promotion from level 5 to level 6 in early November. As you say you need to complete a whole raft of additional activities as well, and to do this you will be in direct competition with members of the German site. I completed my quotas of confirmations in mid December and by that time I have got nearly 500,000 points. I now need 5 higher level members to vote for me (and bear in mind these will be mainly from the German site). In the last 10 days I have received just one of those five required votes. English only speakers are at a considerable disadvantage in the way the site is set up. You need to be at level 6 before you can confirm other people's hotel and attraction submissions.
They have recently changed the trivago software and the lead page contains a matrix of pictures of "experienced members" - and gues what, none are trivago.co.uk members.
............... and I have been asked why I'm not as active now as I used to be!!
Alan