FWIW and unrelated to previous posts, there is a lot of J and F availability on EK on IAH-DXB. Departing IAH as early as Aug 22.
Couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger on F, good redemption value at 300k miles for a 15k ticket of course, but J at 165K miles was just more reasonable. Going to DXB in Sep, pretty excited about it!
I would have been able to depart from and return to ATL for the same mileage but it routed me ATL-SEA-IAH-DXB and that just didn't make any sense. Will just fly BNA-IAH direct on UA (*A award ticket) and save myself a lot of time/layovers.
Was surprised to see quite a bit of IAH-DXB availability on EK. There is also a lot of F availability on BA via LHR but it's 1k fuel surcharge each way for F.