What's the point of staying loyal to Qantas?

Your statement that going from Silver to Gold in two months is "an unachievable goal" is simply absurd. You could very easily do it in under a week. I assume what you are saying is you don't have the money or you don't have the time. It may also be that Gold is simply not important enough for you to chase it. Don't sweat when your anniversary date is. Work within the parameters you have. As for deciding to go VA and try and talk your team in to going with you!! Mate if they already have Qantas status then that is going to be a next level embarrassing outcome as they roll around on the floor laughing!

Mviy was 100% on the money with real world examples of the advantages of Gold over Silver. Spot on.

The only person who would try and argue that Silver = Gold .....? You guessed it, a P1!! LOL!!

The main benefit that I'd expect from Gold over Silver is one I haven't yet mentioned.

Domestically I hardly ever use QF. A one hour trip to Melbourne does not justify the charges QF levies. So the cheapest the better. Now international is different. I'm a Gold FF and that makes a world of difference to my usual destinations, London, Singapore, NY, DFW and LA. Good to great lounges in all. Try being a silver there.

So it sounds like you'll be travelling with colleagues who already have lounge access so you've got free lounge access until you reach gold anyway. They may get through security a tiny bit quicker. A bit like the speed skater that won gold at the olympics was a tiny bit quicker than the guy that won silver. There's no difference in those lines a lot of the time. You might get a status bonus before your anniversary? That can carry over to the new membership year if you don't claim it until your new year has started. 50 point head start potentially. You'll make it. Nice to have colleagues with membership.

Originally Posted by Bollen

> Your statement that going from Silver to Gold in two months is "an unachievable goal" is simply absurd.

It's not absurd within my bounds. Company policy is economy for domestic flights and only flexi for return trips. Unless i pay the $400 odd difference to fly business class or fly internationally one weekend i feel it is unachievable... plus I don't want to spend my own money. The irony though, just today my partner told me he wants me to spend a week in Philippines with our off shore team in April (just after my anniversary ugh!).

The team may laugh (one of them doesn't even have a FF membership yet though), the decision is theirs but I'm not sticking around.

When you can get a FF membership for free there’s no good reason not to get it. Even if you don’t level up, with QF you can still make progress towards lifetime status.

I would move to VA. Less status credits for top tiers, If you have certain AMEX cards you can use the lounges. Once you hit. Gold the points earn is more than double for domestic flights. If you travel F or J or partners you earn up to double points. Biggest advantage is you can transfer VA points to SQ. Yes VA lounges are rather average compared to QF however for the reasons above VA would be my choice. Finally VA have the fly ahead rule that QF do not. This is a big plus

jsal, are you sure you can't achieve gold within the 2 months? I read the thread and thought that possibly could be the case but you did mention in your last post you are fixed on the way out and flex on the way back.

I am a lifetime Qantas gold member and would highly recommend trying to get it, especially for your post corporate travels. Just keep adding status points and you will eventually get there.

I have a lifetime QC membership the main perk with different status cards seems to be amount of lounge access so not that important for me I also agree that having points go back to zero on the anniversary date is very tough must be a fairer system