I regularly fly out of Newcastle, so no full premium Qantas service here, only Jet*. Since I took up the kind offer to status match I thought i'd give the gos. On the way down I was pre allocated 3A, and it seemed like the first row of us with the extreme leg room were all Golds, no one was placed in either centre seat despite the plane looking very full behind. But in front, there were FULL BUSINESS CLASS seats, which the FA kindly told me were being sold as PE seats atm until sometime early in the new year. Lovely purple bulkhead seperating us but no entertainment system, dammit I love getting my little foxtel hit, anyway read my book and was happy to see my bag (free 23kg allowance) arrived fairly quickly. On departure I noticed everyone pulling their luggage in the PE section seemed to have platinum Q tags on their bags, and I wondered if they filled the front with their Platinum flyers and then sat us golds directly behind to be nice 
On return I had pre selected somewhere up the back in an isle, Virgin checkin had 100's of people in the line, but I walked straight up to the priority boarding area and was immediately checked in, and told I was now in seat 2A - i'd been upgraded! very first time i've ever been upgraded - not once in 20 years as a silver or gold QFF'er have I ever had an upgrade and here I was getting one on my first Gold Virgin flight! Went thru the priority screening land - once again huge queue except for there, had a brief wander thru the Lounge, seemed nice and the food selection was similiar to the Q Club but had a bit more variety, lots of smiling happy staff members around, hopped on the plane, was old interior but I was ok with that, was given free selection from menue and greeted by name, they checked in on us if we wanted anything more twice on the 75 min flight, and we were first off and then when the luggage came out my bag was 3rd! (not 3rd last as usual even when it does at times have a priority tag on Q). No spare seats up the front on either flight, so i'm getting the idea they are going to fill the spare seats up rather than leave them empty and finally you can fly PE and Business soon out of Newcastle. I have been very impressed, but the main thing despite all the nice to have's was the attitude, everyone was pleasant and smiling. I'm off to book my Jan flight down and back now, just wish they had more than one direct flight a day to Melb to pick from but geesh it made a nice difference from Jet*.
On return I had pre selected somewhere up the back in an isle, Virgin checkin had 100's of people in the line, but I walked straight up to the priority boarding area and was immediately checked in, and told I was now in seat 2A - i'd been upgraded! very first time i've ever been upgraded - not once in 20 years as a silver or gold QFF'er have I ever had an upgrade and here I was getting one on my first Gold Virgin flight! Went thru the priority screening land - once again huge queue except for there, had a brief wander thru the Lounge, seemed nice and the food selection was similiar to the Q Club but had a bit more variety, lots of smiling happy staff members around, hopped on the plane, was old interior but I was ok with that, was given free selection from menue and greeted by name, they checked in on us if we wanted anything more twice on the 75 min flight, and we were first off and then when the luggage came out my bag was 3rd! (not 3rd last as usual even when it does at times have a priority tag on Q). No spare seats up the front on either flight, so i'm getting the idea they are going to fill the spare seats up rather than leave them empty and finally you can fly PE and Business soon out of Newcastle. I have been very impressed, but the main thing despite all the nice to have's was the attitude, everyone was pleasant and smiling. I'm off to book my Jan flight down and back now, just wish they had more than one direct flight a day to Melb to pick from but geesh it made a nice difference from Jet*.
