The lengths that many travellers go to in order to gain an advantage forces changes such as the restrictions on lounge access that Qantas has introduced. Quite often the things that are done to gain such advantages are way outside the spirit of the QF membership so ultimately Qantas has to act to prevent what often amounts to abuses of the program. I get annoyed by people pushing the limits which results in changes that end up disadvantaging those who do not abuse the system. I frankly have little interest in the relentless pursuit of "freebies" - I am happy to enjoy the privileges I get without scheming to squeeze even more out of the program. I also don't have the time, nor is my life that sad that I feel compelled to do so.
"Spirit of the QF membership". Interesting notion.
I only see a commercial agreement between QF and it's customers. Sure, QF like to play on the "Spirit of Australia", the patriotic line of "we're disadvantaged compared to those nasty Johnny Foreigners, please sign our FB page so we can act like the nasty Johnny Foreigner" etc etc, but at the end of the day, QF mostly engage on commercial activity.
QF also set the rules for that commercial engagement between itself and its customers. If people gain advantage through activities which are outside of the commercial agreement (gain benefits to which they are not entitled) then I expect those individuals to be brought to redress by QF.
If, however, QF - through lack of diligence - create a situation whereby Customers legitimately gain a benefit which QF did not budget for, then why do you blame the Customer for that? QF can, and do, shift the commercial agreement back to favor themselves. Such is the world of commerce.
I think where everyone starts to get a little heated is where they perceive they've already paid for a service which is later withdrawn - that "payment" can be through hard-cash, per the QC Memberships - of through status given the revenue previously expended, and against which you'd expect QF to maintain a liability until cleared. At this point it's up to the individual customer to decide whether QF is taking the p155 or whether they can see the commercial justification of QF to withdraw.
Where things get really disappointing from a personal perspective is when a certain CEO makes blithe promises which are then broken within a matter of months: the service matching and promise that the higher of the EK/QF prevailing where different is a classic. Never does that same CEO front up and say "actually, sorry, we got that wrong and commercially its not as viable as we thought it would be". Instead QF just (usually) withdraw them quietly without so much as an update, just altering the T&Cs.
Regards,
BD
