Having flown both, I find the food on Cathay Pacific to be much better than that on Qatar Airways. It's really QRs only achilles hell. Nothing wrong with it, but it's generally always the same and I've never found it to be "wow" for me. Whereas on other oneworld airlines like CX, the food has often been remarkably good. There is also the Hong Kong Milk Tea on CX which is lovely, as is their Cathay Delight drink. Cathay's seat is pretty much the same as a bunch of other airlines and is very good. The CX J lounge in Hong Kong is also superb!

With QR, the Qsuite is quite lovely with great finishes, however it didn't impress me as much as the people screaming about it on the blogosphere will lead you to believe. It was great and the cabin looks slick with top quality finishes. Also, the dine on demand on QR cannot be faulted, nor the service. The Al Mourjan lounge in Doha is also very good, though it's never been to my taste (I prefer the more cosy lounges CX offer).

Honestly, if you think you'll be flying business class again in future, take the cheaper deal and save QR for later. I used to be able to get QR J to Australia and back out of ARN for about €2,300. Who knows if we'll see those prices again (and they were regularly like that), but that might put the current QR pricing more into perspective. Personally, I always take the cheapest, knowing that one day it'll be the other airline that is cheaper and then I'll be flying them.