Qantas refusing to fix "East Coast Penalty" on MH Business (D Class) - Sanity Check needed

[oz_mark]

It seems obvious what has happened here. When the Partner Earning Rates were updated on September 1, 2025:

• Perth/Adelaide (Zone 4): Were correctly updated to the new "Business" rate (jumping from ~50 to 100 SC).
• Melbourne/Sydney (Zone 5): Appear to have been left stranded on the legacy pre-September rates (staying at 60 SC), effectively treating "D" class as Economy/Discount Economy from the East Coast, despite Qantas's own updated table defining "D" as Business post the September 1 changes!
• Note: Qantas does not operate their own metal on this route, so "route protection" differences shouldn't be at play here.

The Partner Earning Rates Table were not updated in the way you describe. For various reasons (competitive), the Perth and Adelaide tables indicated 100SC even before that date.
What did change was that 'D' moved from earning Flexible Economy to Business. In the case of MEL-KUL, that meant you got 60SC instead of 30SC.

 

[hutch]

If I'm honest, I'd place this issue in the "pick your battles" category and forget about it.

Wouldn't fathom taking something like this to a tribunal.

Not even sure what the legal case would be.

Yes, it doesn't make logical sense - but the status is being correctly applied as per the table.

 

[SYD]

The presumption that QF doesn’t fly a route thus should earn more is a furphy that gets banded around here a lot. As others have said, the basis of the “Simpler & Fairer” (TM) earn tables haven’t generally changed much for over a decade. The main change was the improved earn on MH (that previously was a stand out oddity - unlike the relative poor earn on QR which is just a function of geography).

VA have adopted something similar under “Crueler & Nastier”….but AFAIK, don’t bestow the preferential treatment to partner flights ex ADL and PER?

 

[Berlin]

After so many years of flying out of Sydney, I’m just factoring that low earn on the first leg out of Australia into my considerations. And usually flying onto Europe and only stopping over in Asia, that’s not too big a deal for me (and I’d certainly not try to drag Qantas into a tribunal for something that is well published in advance- man, some people!).