I arrived in Dubai with a 7 hour layover and walked over to the Marhaba lounge, as the Amex Platinum card has that as one of its benefits. The lounge dragon said "I'm sorry, Middle East issued cards only."

Um, what?

I walked outside the lounge and looked at the sign, and there was a very unprofessional looking inkjet-printed sign under the American Express logo (on the "who has access to this lounge" board) that said "Middle East Cards." I took a picture of it to show Amex USA. The thing is - to whom should I send it and what should I ask for as compensation for the denial?

I had lounge access at two other lounges in the airport so it wasn't like I was cattle car, its just the principal of the thing - Amex has a deal with them so they should honor it. What if I was an American Centurion card member, would they have denied me too? I bet that would have been a whole world of hate pouring down on them that they wouldn't want to deal with.

This was unexpected and totally uncool. I honestly was flabbergasted and had no idea what to do at the time. What made it worse was that the lady said "Oh, well we'll take American Express to pay for the daily access fee." WHAT?! Dude.