Here's one for you. I purchased tickets in October 2010 from Emirates (my first time with them) for my wife and myself to go from BKK to FCO in May 2011. In December 2010, my Citibank Master Card was compromised by online fraud and Citi immediately caught it, notified me, cancelled the card and issued me a new one. Yes, I was aware of the credit card airport requirement but had totally forgotten about the fraud and frankly thought I had used another card which I had with me. I also had the replacement card with me. Bottom line, after a lot of discussion and a couple of layers of decision makers, I was required to purchase new tickets at the current higher rate in order to board. No one would even consider that I was not able to present a card that was cancelled 5 months before the May flight nor would they call Citibank to verify the facts. The contact at each level was very civil and polite except for one rep who said the airline assumes everyone is lying and always requires a new ticket. Can you believe that as a policy?

I have written to Emirates and provided all the evidence but I am waiting for a reply. It is ridiculous that I should even have had to write a letter. If Emirates' real issue was credit card security, they could have just refunded the old ticket to the old credit card which they did (I got the credit with no problem) and just charged my new credit for the same amount.