Here's the situation:

• A friend of mine and I are going on a cruise that leaves AKL and terminates at SYD.
• We'll be traveling SEA-SFO-SYD-AKL then SYD-SFO-SEA.
• The dates in question have XF, XC, NF and NC available for > 2 tickets.
• I've never flown int'l F and my friend has never flown int'l C or F.
• I'm purchasing a one-way Biz ticket for each of us for the SYD-AKL leg.

Is the F product (soft and hard) that much better than C where I'd be giving up the chance to earn ~15K EQMs? (Those EQMs might be necessary so I can make 1K again for 2011 ... I should be 1K for 2010 no problem.)

Redeeming the miles for the F tickets will drain all my miles, where as I'll still have > 100K RDMs if I go with the C tickets (and upgrade mine from a purchased Y ticket). That will lower my chances/ability to upgrade on domestic flights (my preferred method of using miles) in the near term.

Basically I'm looking for reasons as to why I should get the F tix instead of the C tix. Thanks!