Thank you all for the input!

To answer a few questions/comments, yes, I did heavily consider both CX and AZ because I definitely agree their J product is superior to both QF and VA. The pricing was pretty close, but they added an additional stopover and, more importantly, I had to consider where the elite-qualifying miles would be going. I don't think I'll be doing too much Star Alliance flying in the next year, so AZ didn't seem like the smartest option. If I were to fly QF, I could get AA codeshare flights and do a $200 Plat challenge and get instant status for next year. I'm currently only 1k away from DL Plat, and flying DL/VA would not only ensure I hit that, but also give me over 25K rollover MQMs.

Ultimately, my routing is SEA-LAX-BNE-LAX-SEA via AS and VA (DL coded both ways). I'm not thrilled with the seat config, but the flights are looking kind of empty right now so maybe I'll get lucky and have two seats to myself. I checked for the DL LAX-SYD flight, but I couldn't justify the extra few grand it priced out at and the flight times showing we're that great (my company uses a third party booking system that can be quite cumbersome). Since I'll be in paid J, I'll get the 50% MQM bonus, plus my 100% mileage bonus for being gold. I also received a targeted DL offer earlier this year (when I was FO) that gets me 75% mileage bonus on all DL flights, which I believe will be valid here. So, around 60K miles total. Yes, they are SkyPesos, but I have pretty good luck with using mine for int'l J travel!