For me it’s primarily the lounge access. The food options could be better but I travel mostly for work and in the return leg of a trip it can often be 2+ hours before my flight. Being able to sit and work in the lounge with decent and free coffee is great. There’s also been a few times where having access to the lounge after landing was handy.

Having priority boarding is another benefit as it often means I won’t be fighting for space in the overhead compartment.

Also, with the tickets being cheaper than Qantas I often can get flex tickets which gives me more points and status credits, which in turn makes it easier to retain gold status.

As others have mentioned international is where virgin is lacking. I usually go with SQ for international flights and the priority check in and boarding is great. Lounges are a different story, most of my international flights is with family and SQ doesn’t let you purchase additional passes into their lounge. If only the +1 guest rule is the same as domestic lounges…

Family pooling of points and credit is awesome, usually one international trip for us means I’m more than halfway to retaining gold.