If your girlfriend does this trip again, she should look at a oneworld Circle Pacific ticket. In economy, it books into L class, so may have somewhat more limited availability on particular flights than a B class ticket (which is essentially full fare economy). Circle Pacific tickets normally have a mileage cap of 22,000 or 26,000 miles but there is a 29,000 mile version if South America is included (and it would have to include Asia). I don't know what her ticket cost but I would expect a series of B class flights to be fairly expensive (for an economy ticket). The downside to a Circle Pacific (economy) ticket is that an L class ticket may earn less than 100% miles (e.g., L on QF will only earn 50% of the miles if credited to AA). I would agree that the AA program generally has a much better earn/burn ratio than QF, so is generally preferred by most non-Australia-based fliers (and some Australia-based ones, like me - unless the programs change drastically, there is no way I'm ever going to switch from AA to QF). If your girlfriend is not going to be doing enough flying to earn status on one or the other, then I would just put the miles into whichever program will give her the most credit for a particular flight.