I definitely agree that after making the first changes to points earned from flights in almost five years, they aren't going to move to a spend-based points earn methodology anytime soon.
But I don't see why they would have to do spend-based points earn first, before they did spend-based status earn. The fact that other airlines might have done it in that order doesn't mean QF has to follow.
From a PR perspective, I think it makes sense to bifurcate the announcement of any nasty changes to QFF into "points earn/burn" and "status" buckets. The universe of customers who care about the former is much larger than the latter. Assuming any spend-based status earn program isn't as contemptuous as BA's was, I suspect it would get significantly less negative media if it was announced as a standalone 'enhancement' in a few months than it would have gotten if it was part of yesterday's changes. I don't think the mainstream media would be nearly as interested in covering changes to QFF status - the overwhelming majority of Australian's don't have it, and therefore don't care.
Plus, staggering the announcement of changes gives QF the opportunity to administer us with a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. I bet there's one hell of a Classic Rewards seat release planned for the week of 24 February...
