Etihad Airways Etihad Guest - Which to take: ORD-AUH J or JFK-AUH F?

Currently booked in F but with the late departure at 10:30pm and having read Lucky's trip report (http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onemileatatime/2011/12/28/etihad-airways-to-the-uae-etihad-airways-first-class-new-york-to-abu-dhabi/ - poor food, poor lounge etc) I am not sure this is a great use of F travel. We are connecting on to Male and coming back same route in F where I think it makes more sense (daytime flight, seems to have "full service").

So question is do I switch to the available J flight from ORD instead? Curious what those who have flown EY recommend, especially anyone having done US-AUH flights

I've never flown ex-USA on EY, but I have travelled in their J and F cabins.

I'd take J every time. The service in their F cabin was poor, whereas my experience in J was excellent.

I recently flew AUH-AUS (SYD/MEL), and loved the F experience.

Even if the soft product is lackluster (we did not have this program), you can't go wrong with the hard product.

BIG difference between the F Suite and the C seat (which looks a bit cramped after having spread out in the F suite).

I'd go for F (assuming it's just a matter of a few extra miles).

Bostonbali

Can't argue with the difference in seat (although I did quite like being tucked away in the window seat in J), but it was the service I had issues with.

Still, different strokes and all that.

Thanks folks. For now I think I will stick with the F that we have. It's 45k AA miles between two of us, so not a small amount of miles, but still if the soft product is not so good having a closed off suite in the middle of the sky should be plenty of fun!