Hello everyone. I am an American based in Riyadh, KSA. Me and my family (5 total) fly round trip from Riyadh to Houston at least twice a year on business class, so between the credit card spend and the flights themselves, we have an opportunity to earn a good chunk of miles. For the last year we have been flying Emirates, and I have achieved platinum status. We like Emirates because the experience is always great, the flight is comfortable, the Dubai airport is nice and the lounge is nice. However, I have found it nearly impossible to use my Skywards points because of low award flight availability and even when I do find a flight, the fuel surcharges make it almost not worth using the points. It's important to me to be able to use my points to get free/low cost award flights for me and my family's annual holidays.

Using websites like point.me, I see lots of availability of low-cost award flights from Riyadh to good vacation destinations using AAdvantage miles, so I've thought about switching to earning AAdvantage miles either by booking directly through AA or flying Qatar or BA and crediting points to AA. Or could stick with United since we are based in Houston, but we would have to fly home via Lufthansa or Turkish, which are not as good of an option as Qatar Airways. I do earn miles with my Chase card so can always transfer to United. Maybe a split scenario when I earn some Chase points and some AA points makes sense? A bit of a complicated scenario, Would appreciate the help. There's just so many options I don't know what's best.

I do most of my daily spend on Chase Sapphire Preferred card and have a bunch of Ultimate Reward Points. Also have the Venture X card and have a couple hundred thousand points there. I have booked travel through their portals before to get the 5x points, but I find that making flight changes when I do this is a huge pain. Have thought about Amex Platinum to ge the 5x points when booking direct, but not sure if their transfer partners are the best for me. Not opposed to getting another credit card but am too busy these days to watch every dollar I spend and am kind of over the churning thing. Just want to manage 1 or 2 cards at most.

Questions
(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Ability to use points for award flights or upgrades with low fuel surcharges. My company pays for our flights from Riyadh to Houston, so I'd like to use the points I earn for other trips throughout the year to interesting locations in Europe and Asia for little to no cash. Lounge access also important, but we have Priority Pass so we usually get some sort of lounge access even when flying economy and will get lounge access regardless when flying business.

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
Reply: At least twice per year RUH-IAH which is about 32,000 miles in J class per year per person. Then a few other trips per year in Economy class. When in the USA we go to Denver and Orlando frequently.

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
Reply: Business class for long haul and economy for shorter trips. Would fly business more if award availability made sense.

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: Yes, I can choose. Usually traveling for pleasure.

(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
Reply: RUH-IAH, IAH-DEN (frontier because it's cheap, but am brand agnostic), IAH-MCO (united, but am brand agnostic)

(6) What is your home airport?
Reply: RUH, IAH

(7) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
Reply: Emirates Platinum. Have lots of Chase Ultimate Rewards and Capital One points saved up. Some miles in Untied as well.

(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
Reply: Like the idea of Qatar Airways for our long trips to the states since their business class looks nice. Need to be on a good Business class product for those two flights home since those flights are very stressful with three small children and I like that experience to be good for my family. Enjoy our Emirates flights, but like I said the points are worthless. I do NOT want to fly Saudia.

Thanks for the help. Please let me know if flying Qatar and crediting points to AA makes sense or if there's a better option.