The benefit of, say, Qatar or Singapore for me is the lounge access when traveling economy on shorter routes through either Star Alliance or One World.

My employer pays for business or first class on anything over 8 hours, Premium economy from 4 - 8 hours and economy for anything below 4 hours. Consequently, it’s not at all uncommon to fly to somewhere like KL and spend a day or so in meetings there and then go on up to HaNoi on Malaysian (if I can get a real cheap ticket, I go Air Asia).

This rolling year, I have managed to get 146k tier miles on Emirates and 1,200 on One World (albeit only with two BA flights currently so I need to do a quick day return somewhere to ensure I retain Silver), so it makes sense to me to reduce my Emirates spend to a ppint where I retain Gold, but increase the spend on OW or *A to benefit from greater lounge access.