Thanks for the info Moopere. Very insightful.
I tend to agree with MarkD on this though. For me, the outcome is satisfactory. I travel using my own $ so a credit is as good as a refund anyway given that I like to go away for weekends often. I will use the credit and given that the flight was a SC run so I could retain Gold, then it's obvious my choice of carrier is VA so I was planning on flying them anyway.
As I said $179 for a J flight MEL-SYD (and a bloody good one at that) and a PE flight SYD-OOL is still cheap and I got 80 SCs (20 more than I was supposed to) anyway due to a slip up by VA. Considering I got J for half the trip, then a $330 credit for a $509 outlay, is reasonable.
Now just have to work out how to use it. Hmmmmm...Melbourne Storm are playing the Warriors again in early June. A trip to AKL might be in order. Or Richmond playing in PER in August. The possibilities are endless.