Someone else on this site reported similar troubles. My card was totally without holds, and the card company always reported no transaction AT ALL from Emirates, but Emirates always said my card was denied.

Apparently, there is a list of cards that have been denied at EK, and once a card is denied it makes it to this list and is not ever released. I could never get my card to work again on the EK website site. I buy maybe 2 tickets a month, so this was repeated quite some times.

Long back, while making a purchase from EK, my card was once denied because the card company placed a hold as they thought my card had been used for fraudulent purchases. This was not the case, the hold was lifted, but the card never again worked at EK on-line. I think I made it to this list! I always used the procedure I mentioned above, make the booking on-line, get it denied by the CC, but get a booking reference, and then call and pay for the booking ref over the phone.