I live too far away from Sydney, and am going too far away from Dubin to benefit from chauffeur (I need to rent a car in Dublin anyway). I'm a member of Etihad Guest, not Velocity, and at one flight a year I doubt Ill ever get to Gold. I do want to keep my Silver, and I also want the points (for upgrades!).
As I said though, I don't think you'll earn any EY Guest miles if you book with EI (even though the flights are operated by EY).
By the way, have you not considered switching to Velocity? Do you fly domestically at all - if so, Velocity Gold is definitely worth having (much more so than EY Silver). Even if you never fly with VA, Velocity Gold is of more benefit when flying with EY than Etihad Silver. You do need to collect 4 eligible sectors with VA to get Gold status, but if you never fly with VA itself, you can do that by booking Etihad flights through VA (i.e if you choose the VA codeshares). Having said that, sometimes the fares with VA are more expensive than with EY, although sometimes it can be the other way around.
And do you have a family? If so, bear in mind that Velocity allows you to pool Status Credits as well as points, which makes it much easier to get status. E.g. when I travel with my wife and 2 kids from MEL-ADL-MEL in discount Y I get 80 Velocity SCs - and you only need 400 SCs per year to retain Gold.
EDIT - by the way, I was crediting to EY until a few months ago - just about clung on to Gold for a few years despite at least 2 J rtn trips to EU per year. Didn't quite make it last year so fell back to Silver - and that was the impetus to switch to Velocity. After only 3 months I've accrued 960 Velocity SCs, and given another 300 SCs to my wife. The same travel would not have been enough to regain Gold with EY. We're both still on Silver for now, as I haven't flown enough eligible sectors, but that will soon be fixed - I'll hit Gold in a couple of weeks and Platinum by September at the latest. I should also be able to get my wife to Gold by then.
