Normally I'd say - last minute travel and likely expensive, so go for award.

However, you may need to be very lucky in this case. Award availability on QF between US and NZ or Australia is very very low - a lot of miles were burned just before QFF recently put up the award costs. NZ doesnt seem to have released much between US and NZ, perhaps due to uncertainties on the new longhaul product which is just starting to roll out.