Walking away from half a Billion CR

So the 3x exploration bonus will end tomorrow, and I have 250 million CR worth of exploration data. If I turn it in, that would be 750 million CR.

But I'm thinking of walking away from it. Hear me out.

I have no engineers unlocked (did get a couple invites tho). My plan was to go to Felicity Farseer (one of the invites) and sell her exploration data to immediately rank her up to lvl 5 and engineer my FSD. Once I do that, I plan to unlock some of the higher tier engineers ASAP so I can upgrade my ships before January 7th (reason being, the Engineer buff that expires on that day).

To do that though, I'm setting aside this exploration data to buy my way into alliances for any access I may need (Marco Qwent requires alliance with Sirius for example).

Do you guys think this temporary engineer buff is worth missing out on half a billion CR?

For additional context, it's not like I need the CR. At the moment I already have 400 million in the bank. I have an A-rated Type 10 Defender (all-rounder brick), an upgraded Phantom for exploration, and just bought a Krait MKII for pure combat (stock, nothing upgraded yet). And I'll get plenty more CR doing missions and bumbling about the bubble.

What I'm lacking in is Engineering… but still, the extra half billion is so enticing.

What should I do? Is the temporary buff to Engineering so significant that it's worth missing out on 500 mill?

*Edit: *

Going for the CR! 90 jumps away from Betancourt base… thank God for 6A fuel scoops!