Just did the survey (I received it a week ago). coughpy survey which has the ring of the reverse possibility. Like fly ahead for example and guaranteed OS partner lounge access. Most respondents would likely have chosen other "carrots" and left these as choices as we already get them. What's the bet they now come out and say, "Fly Ahead is to be axed as we asked our members and they weren't interested in it".
Some of the others were just purely carrots, like the complementary taxi. If that happens, it will only be for the new top tier, which sounded like they're thinking about 2000SCs or more and only when flying business, but in reality, I'd think that's just a pipe dream designed to draw attention away from the more realistic.
I think out of all of it, the most realistic was life time status. I think they need that to stay competitive. I say that from personal experience, because when I started the survey, it made me realise just how drawn in I was by VA status. Basically all my commercial flying with VA (about 50 fights a year) and certainly for the last year or so, it's been predominantly flexi/J. That's what I would consider a higher value flyer than I was to them say two or three years ago. Yet here I am, just starting to fly higher value JQ flights, to get to QF life time status.....at the expense of VA. They have to do the life time thing, or wave goodbye to more and more higher value clients.
The one omission I am a bit worried about, is row 3. Not a single word, yet I have no doubt that row 3 value must be a consideration for them.