Reaching yearly Qantas Gold after you get to Lifetime Silver

Hi. I know you get a slight reduction in status points required to retain Silver when you have reached it (250 vs 300). What happens if you get Lifetime Silver? Do you need 700 points to reach Gold for that year, 650, 600? How about if you have Lifetime Silver and have reached Platinum that year?

.. precisely why QF 'Loyalty' is a complete misnomer for Silvers.

Let's face it, Silver's get virtually no benefits at all these days, short of being able to check-in at Business counters and one measly complimentary Lounge Pass per year. Given that Lifetime Silver requires 7,000 status credits to achieve, some Silvers are still chasing this 'benefit' after 10 or more years of (pax) loyalty.

If QF were a bit more innovative and truly wished to reward their loyal 'Silvers', they could use the suggested inducement to progress their 'Silvers' toward Gold status. The 'benefits of LTS are so meagre that I would wager that - after achieving this level - a considerable number would question the 'value' of starting the process over again - of achieving another 7,000 status credits to bounce to LTG.

Like a lot of FF programs, QF's 'loyalty' is friendly to itself - and agnostic to it's customers. After all, your 'Silver' base is where you should be seeking to grow your base of higher-tiered flyers. Dysfunctional, IMHO.

I agree that the LTS population is at the moment an unmined opportunity for QF.

Totally agree Steve on all of your points there. LTS gets no more recognition than ordinary silver and that needs to be looked at.

I would like to see more incentives to reach lifetime gold such as starting the year with a anumber of status credits (encouraging you to go for yearly gold as a step to LTG). As you are already LTS the 250 retain silver credit level is not there for you on LTS and you really get no advantage over bronze  in attempting to reach yearly gold.

Yes, I've been in this position for some years and although most years I make Gold anyway, sadly I doubt I'll live long enough to make LG. As I'm a life member of QC being Gold is mostly useful for other OW airlines; I don't suppose QF have any interest in making my life easier on other carriers, though it would be no skin off their nose.

Agree, pity Qantas does not encourage loyalty more. Dropped down from Gold at the end of last year after 3 years at that level but attained Lifetime Silver, WOW, still have to get 700 credits this year to get back to Gold. Have enough flying coming up to do that but Lifetime Silver should mean a little more than it does.

QF are actually pretty generous with regard to this.

@Rezzadogs,

Sorry, but I do not agree with your premise.

1. In the example I give ie: "Given that Lifetime Silver requires 7,000 status credits to achieve, some Silvers are still chasing this 'benefit' after 10 or more years of (pax) loyalty". Ergo to achieve Lifetime Silver over a 10yr period, you would need to acquire 700 status credits per year to qualify for the 7,000 SC threshold.
2. According to my knowledge of mathematics, that 700 SC's per year is the same number required to achieve Gold - on an annual basis. Let's also remember that after achieving annual Gold, the threshold to retain drops to 600 SC's per year. In the case of LTS, it remains at 700, each year.
3. So, in a perverse manner, it might actually be argued that Silvers chasing LTS may well be more valuable to QF than Golds.
4. "Sure not a lot of benefits, but silver is not an enormous amount of loyalty show by you to Qantas either". To remain in 'disagreement mode' I would also remind you that on Red-eDeals (the most common fare) 70 one way SYD-MEL flights per annum would yield 700 SC, at a rate of 10 SC per sector. That is not an inconsequential amount of 'loyalty' in anyone's language. Especially when multiplied by a factor of 10 over a ten year period.
5. I think your comments reflect a lack of knowledge of just how few Platinum One's, Platinums and Gold members QFF realistically has, compared to it's total overall membership of 11.5 million. QF don't publish information on these numbers (except for total membership), but I do recall seeing an article some 18 months ago suggesting that total Plat / Plat1 combined membership is less than 10K. Add Golds (maybe 50-70K) & Silvers (perhaps 200K) and you probably equate to 5% of total membership at very best.

Originally Posted by cloud-9 :

"QF are actually pretty generous with regard to this.

My point here is mainly that there is an untapped win win available and that Qantas would be smart to tap it.

One benefit that would add greatly to LTS is if LTSs were always above standard Silvers in the upgrade request system, regardless of time. Whereas at the moment, given this is not a published benefit, one assumes that a LTS and standard Silver are differentiated merely by when the upgrade request was made. Just a thought...

Upgrade priority for LT v Annual (both Silver and Gold) is another easy and inexpensive benefit they could give away Trevor, agreed.