Buying airline tickets is similar to gambling. There are few rules nowadays as ticket prices are set by computer algorithms from moment to moment. All the standard, old rules, such as round-trip tickets being cheaper than two singles are no longer valid for many busy destinations. I'm sure even the number of people checking out specific flights affects the price shown on travel websites.
Knowing when to pull the trigger takes a whole lot of constant checking.
Anyway, we're happy that our total cost of coming and going was cheaper than if we bought a round-trip today. We've chosen to return on an Air Canada direct flight from Dubai to Vancouver. The new direct service is set to start at the end of next month. So, we fly a little over four hours from CMB to DXB to catch the longer segment. Our departure will be on March 17th with an arrival here on the 18th. The Air Canada flight alone is slotted to take 15 hours and 55 minutes. That is a whole lot of time to spend in one seat.
I quickly located this photo from the Dubai Airport in my Flickr photo collection. I took this image in April of 2016. So, this was when we were coming back after a winter in Luxor, Egypt.