I can normally get to Silver easily, but for the past 2 years I reached Gold with two QR trips (4 segments each so 560 TPs, twice), a few CE sale tickets and one AY trip to Tallinn.

The QR trips I would have flown anyway, but probably on direct flights in economy if there had been no sales; I paid about 1.5x the amount that I would have paid in the past for business class.

The CE tickets and Tallinn were all places I hadn't been before and on my wish list; if there had been no sales I would have redeemed RFS in economy; the sale prices were about double the RFS price using 1p/avios.

I don't care that much for CE and get all the benefits that I care about even with Silver, so strictly speaking it was a waste of money, but it was a small amount overall and I didn't really waste any extra time on flights. While it took half a day longer to Asia via DOH and continental Europe departure point, again that meant I got a "free" trip to places I've wanted to go to.

I was prepared to renew gold at the start of the year, but I only managed to get one QR cheap ticket and then sales dried up for a bit; I just read about the Penang offers but have no time to go there in the rest of my membership year even though I would like to. There are some CE sale tickets available but they aren't really to places I want to go to this year either. Therefore, while I could spend a bit of money and time chasing TPs, I think it doesn't make sense as the trips would not fulfill any of my other travel goals, and I will now focus on seeing what I can book for my next membership year.

I do like the LHR F wing, the CX and QF F lounges and Australian domestic J lounges but, if paid entry above the OWS lounge entitlement was offered I wouldn't take it up. So it doesn't seem right to spend money needlessly on flying, just to get these perks for free with Gold.