Sorry for the slight thread diversion. Numero do you add housing to all your number crunching when comparing ek and cx? Taking the housing allowance and entering the market in dubai is very much an individual thing. None of my friends or myself have taken the allowance and I've been there a while. On the other hand everyone I know in cx uses the allowance to pay off their own accommodation, in a market that is mature and properly regulated and also without the threat of war on the door step.
So to be objective the calculations shouldn't factor in any housing based allowance and if they do it should be understood to get the numbers to work you have to take a mortgage in dubai and buy property, something most people from our neck of the woods don't do.