IAH-DXB $647 on KLM
RustyC, my wife and I were on your return AMS-IAH last Wed (5/8). We did IAH-AMS-AUH. Spent one night in Abu Dhabi, toured the mosque, took a cab to Dubai (It was less than $70 hotel to hotel, which was nice). Spent the next night in Dubai, toured the Burj Khalifa and went to Jumeirah Beach before heading back on the 12:50 out of DXB to AMS and back to IAH.
My wife and I agreed we would have liked a few more days, but if we had that much vacation time we probably would have done the JNB or CPT run instead.
One plus was that, even though we are both DL GM, I contacted the KLM Twitter team because I wasn't able to book Economy Comfort at the discount rate on their website. They had someone call me and I turned out getting EC for free on all legs. The mini cabin on the 747 combi IAH-AMS is really nice, especially if you are on the 2 side that borders the galley.