I’ve had two negative incidents in Cape Town, both with the same lady ironically but with different issues.
The first was when she insisted on seeing my *G card in order to grant access to a guest. She said that even though the system showed I was *G, she had to swipe the card to allow a guest. After 30 minutes of argument and waiting for her supervisor, we were finally granted entry.
The second time she insisted that *G on purely domestic itineraries booked in “G” class were not allowed lounge access. After I reminded her of the previous issue we had about lounge access and how she turned out to be wrong, she offered to allow me access as a “one time exception”. I said that wasn’t good enough and insisted that the supervisor was called. Same supervisor who recognised me from my previous issue months earlier and chided her for once again making up rules. Lots of apologies and a comment to the agent that “we’ll talk about this later with xyz” (presumably their boss).
I’ve also had more issues with access to the SAA Johannesburg lounges than I can remember – to the point where actually getting access without an argument is more comment worthy than the alternative. Excuses range from “Ethiopian Airlines flights are not Star Alliance flights unless the boarding pass is printed on cardboard with the *A logo” (which the kiosk boarding passes don’t print obviously) to “I know your flight is 2 hours delayed but it is past the boarding time printed on your boarding pass so I can’t let you enter” to “
flights to Malawi on Mondays are not eligible for lounge access, but the flights on Wednesday and Saturday are ok”.
I couldn’t make these up if I tried.