But Twitter has 1000000 members who fly 20SC annually and earn 10,000 points each, thus making it a worthwhile channel to monitor, right? (I'll ignore the geeky stuff like Twitters k-NN analytic ability and how QF may exploit this).
That's the one where a Bronze member who has just flown a BNE-SYD for $125 and had a bad experience with a recliner onboard complains to Qantas (and their own 1 million+ followers) on Twitter, and gets great customer service because of the 1 million followers who may be potential customers. Yet a Platinum One member who has just completed a flight to take them over 7,000 SC needs help but is overseas and can't call the SST, so tweets Qantas (and their 2 other followers – most likely a family member and a bot) and because of their low follower count, is overlooked for two days.
I can understand that of those 1 million+ followers for the Bronze member, some may be potential customers one day. However, it's an unknown, and you're focusing on the wrong person. Now, the Platinum One member may only have 2 followers who see you resolve their issue, but at their incredible level of SC earn for that year, they are surely a much higher value customer to your business.
Fast forward a thousand times of treating the Bronze members with a large social media following better than the Platinum One members with almost no following and you may have lost the trust of a group of members spending thousands a year, in exchange for members who say they would fly you, but haven't translated that into sales yet.
In short, they're focusing on the wrong customers with this change.
Most Gold and above QF members on AFF are likely people who promote the benefits of flying with QFF.
My mother flew CX between HKG and Australia when I first joined AFF. She now flies QF Business exclusively, getting a far better deal, increased comfort on the new A330 suites and last year made it all the way to Platinum, despite never having gone higher than Gold before with CX.
My father is a CX Diamond, who I once tried to cover to QF with the enticement of LTG. Since CX changed their program he now splits his status between both carriers, maintaining CX Diamond and QF Platinum and actively checks how much a flight will earn before he chooses where to credit it.
If I had not have learned what I did here, now translated that into status for myself, they would not be customers too.
One thing VA do well is call centre wait times, as a red 15-30minutes as a silver longest wait has been 5 minutes(I believe they push silver to the front of the red line), gold and i'm guessing plat answers instantly after the privacy statement.
Part of the reason for smaller wait times could be the lower member base though.
