I think you are missing that the 40% MQD figure is 40% of distance flown, not fare paid. If you are flying 10000 miles roundtrip, you will earn 4000 MQD's regardless of how much you actually paid for the ticket. So if a ticket costs $4K on that 10000 mile trip, you will do better flying AF coded flights as your MQD earn will be higher (due to taxes not counting towards MQD's on the DL-coded flights). Whether or not it's an 006 ticket no longer matters in 2018, only marketing carrier will be used to determine miles, MQM's, and MQD's. In the end, you are going to have to compare mileage flown vs. how much a ticket costs minus taxes to determine which will earn more. But that was already the case for anyone flying the deeper discount J fares. In 2017, the deepest discount Z fares only earned 25% of mileage flown MQD's on AF tickets, while D/I earned 30%. They are bumping up all the discount J fares (C/D/I/Z) to 40% mileage flown MQD (the same as full J) in 2018.
OK, now I get it....I think
I ran my last trip through the calculation and in fact my MQD's would have been slightly higher with AF flight numbers.
But my RDMs would have been slightly less.....if I understand it correctly:
ATL-CDG I received 15,224 RDM based on fare
Under new calc if AF (ATL-CDG is 4380 miles):
14,016 RDM (4380X2 for discounted business + 5256 DM 120% bonus)
Is that right or am I misunderstanding the DM bonus?
But....that was a cheap ticket, if I wanted to apply it to a more expensive one:
$7K ticket for 15,000 mile trip
DL flight numbers - 75K RDM and $7K MQD
AF flight numbers - 48K RDM and $6K MQD