Forever slaves of the Brits!

It was a busy week... busy wrapping stuff up before I head home to Dubai for 6weeks. I made a trip to San Fran and although I was sick it was great:)

We had a holiday potluck at work - multicultural appetizers and dessert. I made samosas and bought kaju katli and coconut barfi from the Indian store. It was a fun time!

I wrapped up stuff on thursday and headed to Phoenix to catch my friday evening flight to Dubai. Went through stuff I never had to do before - give my rent check to Subha to drop off, my keys so she could check mail, water my plants etc and headed out.
All's well at my sister's place in phoenix. I checked into my flight and my only concern is I couldn't get the seat I wanted because there was a system error on British Airways online.

It's now friday and there's drama in store...drama I'm not expecting in the least...
I'm in the airport with my sister and Pari. The whole time I was in line my only worry was "I hope I get seat 40K". I finally got to the counter and the agent looks at my passport and stuff.

BA agent: do you have a valid US visa?
me: here's my approval notice. (I showed her my H1B approval notice) I'm going to Dubai to get it stamped in my passport.
BA agent: so you don't have a valid visa IN your passport. You also don't have a London transit visa
me: but I called BA and checked everything online and they said I was good to go. I booked my tickets in June so I did all the research and checked
BA agent: well, whoever you talked to gave you incorrect information. Let me check with my supervisor
she comes back few mins later...
BA agent: I just checked with my supervisor and we called London immigration. They won't accept the paperwork as a valid visa because it's not in your passport. I'm sorry I cannot let you board. We will be fined by UK immigration if you do.
my sister: can we please talk to a manager

The manager came and after several minutes of conversation they did not let me board. She was really helpful and said she would overlook the 'no change' policy on my ticket and change it for next thursday so it gave me time to go to LA and get my UK visa before flying. Only catch being I would miss my US visa appointment date in Dubai!

we finally head home and I start looking up UK visa procedures. I was planning on driving to LA on monday.

My parents called that night and said they found an Emirates flight direct from JFK to dubai on the 10th and it would get me into Dubai the night of the 11th in time for my visa appointment on the 12th. it was a new ticket, but in the grand scheme of things it was an expense we were willing to make.So now we stayed up all night finding a flight from phoenix to jfk. and I finally made it in to dubai.
while in line at JFK another guy shared his story and said he had the same experience with Air India in Houston!

anyone who's reading: if you're on a US visa (not a green card or citizen) and it is not valid in your passport, most european countries are requiring that you have a transit visa for the country you're connecting in. please double check with the airline and more importantly with the country's embassy. they will give you more accurate info!