I find that googling "Air Canada Business class Trip report," "Air China business class trip report," "ANA Business class 777 trip report" and such usually lends me to finding out about the flights I'm interested in.

That said--you often don't have a ton of options. Yes one carrier might have a better product--but there might be a nonstop in coach vs. a 2 stop in F/J, or have a 12 hour layover. Or there may be no saver availability and you can't even book it if you wanted to. All of this plays into my decisions.

Also coach on a non-US based carrier is 100% better than coach on a US carrier. Seats are better, food is better, alcohol is usually free, and the whole ordeal is...not terrible. Don't judge international coach based on the flights you take here in the US.

Adding my $.02: It is a total package for me: Flight times, Can I take a more direct route with less stops and less layovers and fly coach? It all goes into figuring out what I try to book. Also my mileage balances, do I have enough for this trip in F/J and my next trip in at least coach? Also how many seats do you need. When you're booking for you+wife it is 2x as hard to have enough miles and 2x as hard to find seats.

I also like to fly one direction in coach and the other in F/J...allowing me to split the cost in miles.