>Yep, I was hoping to bypass the stored procedure route, but it looks as though it's the only way.
>
>Thanks
>
>>You can do the first select into a cursor and than add new record with Null date.
>>
>>>Oops, sorry. I know the problem of not being able to use the order by in the first select. Any ideas on how to return the correct results?
>>>
>>>John
>>>
>>>>You've to add 'order by begin_date desc' to the first select in whcih case it cannot be UNION.
>>>>

This return max 3 rows:

SELECT*FROM (
    SELECT TOP 2 plan , begindate FROM mytable ORDER BY begindate DESC) _
UNION ALL
    SELECT MAX(plan)+1, NULL      FROM mytable 
* ORDER BY .. . it is redundant