Originally Posted by
ashill
Not only are the redeemable miles on partners not affected by the Jan 1, 2016 changes, but the EQM situation is improved on the cheapest fares. All partner discount economy fares that earn miles will now earn 0.5 EQMs per mile flown (NOT per base mile), according to the charts. On partners like BA and AS on which all (mileage-earning) fares currently earn 1.0 base miles and EQMs, that hurts. But on QF, 0.5 is a significant improvement on the cheapest fares.
Of course, this is based on the earning charts; there's no experience to report on yet. But this is pretty clear from the language on the earning charts.
That's my reading too. BA and AY fliers in discount Y get massively stiffed, but QF earning actually improves. I was abandoning AA, but if this turns out to be true in practice, I may as well stay with them as I won't do any better with the BA or QF programs. Of course, RDM are down all round, and redemptions are more expensive (albeit that was a "correction" which had been a long time coming).