As a BAEC Gold who has been earning family status on a couple of RTW trips/year, since COVID, I agree with the consensus here - i.e. the RTW tickets are broadly unaffected from these changes, as long as you avoid as many AA/BA flights as possible, and focus on QR and other 50% earners. (My last DONE ticketed by AA definitely had the $$ amounts posted to my BAEC account for Avios earning, so will of course do the same for my RTW, and those $$ numbers were not great). Just a shame that ticketing via AA means transparency, at the "cost" of dealing with competent RTW staff....

I did a quick calculation that even without deliberate TP earning manipulations I'd be able to get my Gold on two RTW DONExs/year fairly easily, which is fine and in line with my current practices - and going out of Japan is cheaper than GBP20k/year. The reduction in AONEx earning is probably a good reason for me to avoid this temptation too.... :P

(and yes, I am very grateful to lose the 4xBA flights minimum, no need to trouble myself with too much BA except for status)