This then becomes the big question.
Why would I need gold on VA at all, if I am already gold on QF and can have a crack at Plat on QF? If QF status matches/challenges me, then I may go all in on QF.
I think people are recommending getting both Gold in QF and on VA for a couple of reasons (which may or may not be relevant to you).
Is a lot of your flying is work related? Seems like a fair bit of it is to me. How much freedom of choice or control do you have over which airline to fly? What happens when your corporate policy or travel provider changes and they change from VA to QF ? (or the other way around?) Or change from a mixture of both to one preferred airline?
For your personal travel you have more control over whom you fly, but if you are "locked in" or captive to one airline (or alliance) then you may very well be spending more money by feeling obliged to select the more expensive option to obtain lounge access/better seats/chance of upgrades & all the other perks etc etc. Classic "golden handcuffs" behaviour. If money is no object or its not significant to you at all then this may not be an issue for you.
Locking yourself into one alliance or airline seems a bit silly considering the amount of travel that you have planned, may as well have the option to try the other guys/keep them honest/have the option if the flight times don't suit etc. The other less obvious low probability but bad consequence possibilities are things to bear in mind, in order of more likely to least likely, how would the following events affect you? Either QF or VA going broke, or stop flying internationally, massive devaluations in ether QFF or Velocity loyalty programs (I think thats one thing you can count on
). Partners and alliances - what happens if your airline stops being partners with airlines that are useful for you (i..e QF losing AA or CE as a partner, VA losing SQ as a partner)?
As others have said - you are nearly there with VA Plat anyway and with family pooling its easy to see you getting to VA PLat and then look at a status challenge to get onto QF Gold, dosen't matter if you slip down to VA Gold as VA Gold gives you most of the good benefits anyway, and then spread the love around depending on which one suits your own circumstances. Getting to Qantas Platinum is really quite a big stretch to get to financially and you will need to weigh that up against possibly temproarily losing VA status while you try to get there.
Given the choice and your travel patterns I would take both Gold in QF and in VA rather than throwing in my lot with one of them.
Compare the "earn" and the "burn" rates for any frequent flyer scheme, if you don't like surcharges consider this as well, use this forum to figure out upgrade availibility/or scarceity of reward seats and upgrades, no point having a bazillion points in a scheme that you can't use!
Also consider the option of warehousing points in a third provider and then transferring to either scheme when you need them, I'm not an expert but some are a fan of this - and this forum has the experts to show how they do it.
No one has commented on this so far but the fact that you are based in Sydney may just help to swing things in Qantas's favour.
