Thanks all.  Thats the way I've been thinking.  I had a big year of travel in 2013 and was Gold.  After that was a bit quiet on the travel front and ended up Silver so had to pony up the cash to get QC.    Thinking will save my cash and put it towards more travel next yea...

Need 60 SC points by end of the month to retain silver. I'm already a Qantas Club member...trying to decide whether worth the expense of a business class to Melb this weekend or drop to bronze (need to go so could just get cheap economy). Looks like benefits of Silver aren't that great with QC ...