EK ticket prices are extremely annoying.

I work in Luanda and like to visit family in Dubai regularly. I like to fly on a Thursday or Friday night and arrive on either the Friday or Saturday morning and return on the Sunday daytime flight.

But recently I had to travel to UK (LAD-DXB-MAN-DXB-LAD) and Portugal (LAD-DXB-LIS-DXB-LAD). I used EK on both occasions and stopped in Dubai on the journey back. But what really upset me was that the tickets in both these cases were cheaper than a simple return to DXB from LAD (ie, LAD-DXB-LAD). In addition, for spending less money and taking additional flights to Europe, I received substantial additional Skywards miles.

I can understand EK selling tickets from LAD to Europe at not much more than a ticket just to DXB. But selling a flight to DXB for more than a flight to Europe via DXB with stopover does not make any sense to me.

So I am now going to sometimes mileage run these fares as I get a pathetic amount of miles on the LAD-DXB-LAD route but will quickly achieve Platinum status if I save money by flying to Europe and stopping in DXB.

So EK are putting my bum on flights I don't want to take and which they could sell to others, receiving less money from me, giving me additional miles and are inviting me to clog up their lounges.

I have always found airfares mysterious but this pricing by EK makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. Does it make sense to you?