I am planning on coming back to the IPB world in October :P now i have a question.. if i purchase 2.1.7 before 2.2 comes out do i have to pay more for the 2.2 or does my payment go towards 2.2?

how does this work anyone mine explaining?

Your payment is for any of the products available at the time. You can download up until your license expires.

So if 2.2 becomes final you can download it. You can test it as beta until then.

Thank you sir :)
wasn't sure about the price change..

Yeah the price change itself doesn't affect what you can download with a current license.