Been trying to book a ticket ex CMB using multiple destination since their booking system over haul and usually always getting the 'unable to price ticket.. please come back later' message.

Called the customer service and it now seems that EK for premium class (Biz and F) will price it as two separate tickets: CMB - DXB then DXB - XXX. Which comes out much higher than ex CMB used to

The reason is that I would like to use DXB as a stop over on the way back...as opposed to booking a simple return ticket.

I guess this benefit / loophole is closed... any suggestions...?

It still works in economy but booked over the phone. If you try to price online it will give the same error.