At the end of June 2022, Qantas will be updating the earn categories for partner airline Cathay Pacific. For the first time, this will see some fares on Cathay Pacific earn at the Discount Economy rate.
Remember, it is the Earn Category that is used in determining the Status Credits and Points earned on a given sector. So a flight in Discount Economy will earn at a lower rate that a flight in Economy, on the same flight sector.
Details
The following table shows the changes that have been made to the Earn Categories for Cathay Pacific.
As can be seen, any flight you take that is booked in the M or L classes will now earn at the Discount Economy rate, rather than at the Economy rate. In addition, the V class is disappearing from the tables altogether, and will no longer earn in the Qantas Frequent Flyer program.
Generally, it appears that these three classes map to the Cathay Pacific Essentials family of fares.
There are other tweaks in the table as well, For example, E will now earn at the Flexible Economy rate instead of the Premium Economy rate.
| for travel until 30 June 2022 | for travel on and from 1 July 2022 | |||
| All flights | All flights | |||
| Discount Economy | – | ML | ||
| Economy | BHKLMV | BHK | ||
| Flexible Economy | Y | YE | ||
| Premium Economy | ERW | RW | ||
| Business | CDIJ | CDIJP | ||
| First | AF | AF | ||
Thoughts
Small modifications to earning tables happen frequently enough. Unfortunately, as in this case, they seem to result in a reduction in earn rate.