Originally Posted by
HansGolden
Until very recently, that's been an old urban legend that may have been true decades ago, but mostly isn't today. I have experience with a wide range of consolidator fares and of course our own specialty contracts and I know of only one airline on which consolidator/unpublished fares earn differently than published fares:
Delta. And that's only been a very recent change (Sep 2012). If you're interested in full details of consolidator mileage earning across a wide range of carriers, peruse all my posts in that thread.
You're right Hans. I should've clarified. I spoke to a couple different agencies including Hans's families, and all the rates were about the average of what I would've paid using ITA, except the agencies were much more flexible (change, refund, etc). I was primarily looking to fly ST/DL so I could earn more MQM's, and the 100% RDM bonus is nice also. But I was told that some DL fares were not eligible at 100% for MQM's/RDM's.