Regarding your observation about the "trip report" forum: many FTers fly Y, but donīt bother to post a trip report, most will only spend the time to write up a report for a "special" trip in C/F.

To answer your question, >99% of FTers donīt pay for intīl F.

Most FTers who fly C/F internationally fall into the following categories:

1) their employee pays for C (and sometimes F, if youīre very lucky)
2) they buy a (discounted) C ticket for leisure (can be <$2k for a TATL flight when airlines are running a promo, especially during the holiday season when business travel is low)
3) they pay for Y and upgrade to C using miles or upgrade instruments (SWUs, EVIPs...)
4) they redeem miles for an award ticket in C/F

Iīll be flying about 100k BIS miles in intīl C/F for leisure this year and havenīt bought anything more expensive than a Y ticket. And as I donīt live in the US, I canīt even generate as many miles as most FTers can.