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Your profile is only 87% complete ….

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If you have logged on to ba.com recently, you will have seen this message:

Your profile

My profile, it seems, was only 87% complete.   How could this be after 25 years of flying with British Airways?

Obviously not wanting to appear unhelpful, I went into my profile to have a poke around.  I was missing my home telephone number so I slotted that in.

91% complete now ….

That still wasn’t enough.  The address section was missing a County, because I live in London.  Line 3 of my address was also missing, because my address does not have a 3rd line.

I made one up anyway.  This crashed the website, however many times I tried, so I gave up on that one.

I had no seating preference in my account.  This is because I prefer an aisle on short-haul and a window on long-haul.  I set it to aisle.

95% complete now ….

Then I got stuck.

The final 5% can ONLY be obtained if you select a special meal.  If I am to get ba.com to remove the annoying ‘your profile is not complete’ message, I need to face a lifetime of diabetic, gluten free, lacto ovo vegetarian (whatever that is) etc food …..

It may, of course, be an improvement.  I have friends who purposely select special meals on short-haul because they are invariably better than the standard food.  I don’t want to take the risk though.  It looks my profile is doomed, never to be 100% complete …..

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (29)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Owain says:
    12 Apr12 April 04:50

    I think it has changed today! My profile now shows as 100% complete, and there is definitely no special meal request…

    • Wyvern says:
      12 Apr12 April 11:53

      Still not working for me – I have a special mea preference and a seat preference already, but address is showing as incomplete (missing third line and county/state) even though it is a full UK address. Tried adding these and got “our systems are not responding”. It’s annoying especially as it takes time to load.

      It would be good if BA could record separate preferences for short-haul and long-haul seating and meals. Doubt we will see any such real enhancements though!

      • Fenny says:
        12 Apr12 April 13:06

        The links on BA pages, or via emails they send me, often don’t work and give the “our systems are not available at this time” message. I managed to navigate directly to the page I needed to confirm my new email address, but only because I already knew where it was. Their systems are rubbish.

        • Lady London says:
          12 Apr12 April 16:12

          + 1.
          I get really annoyed with websites that tell me “your profile is incomplete”. I often stop using these sites.

          Who cares?

          Why should I give information that you can use to segment me, market to me and possibly sell me?

          I’ll give you what I need to.

  • mkcol says:
    12 Apr12 April 04:55

    I had identical problem for about the last month – stuck at 97% complete because I refused to select a special meal.

    I used to always select one as they had previously been much better, but that rapidly changed & I also heard that it almost eliminates the chance of getting an operational upgrade so I stopped that practice.

    Randomly, just a couple of days ago, it is now showing as 100% complete.

  • Alan says:
    12 Apr12 April 05:15

    The BA twitter team said they’d sort this out, however even if you get to 100% the message never goes away!! Yet another win for BA IT!

  • David says:
    12 Apr12 April 05:30

    Whatever you do, don’t choose a special meal as you’ll never be upgraded ever again. My wife and I were once upgraded to First and then they spotted her vegetarian special meal. After apologising they rescinded the upgrade. Devastating!

  • nathanjf says:
    12 Apr12 April 05:56

    Is it also weird that a “seat choice” is needed for 100%. If you’re indifferent you’re not a 100% BA profile? I guess I’ll have to choose one…

    • FormalHall says:
      12 Apr12 April 16:12

      I’d be amazed if you were indifferent, unless you have an unusual fondness for the middle seat!
      I wonder with the rise of no seat selection on HBO fares, I wonder whether BA will at least take into account our window or aisle preferences, especially if they are pushing us to fill them in on our profile.

  • Scott says:
    12 Apr12 April 06:43

    They have definitely changed this. Mine was sitting at 96% initially and the only thing missing was the special meal requests. It has now gone to 100% without having to select a special meal. I think they underestimated how big a deal it would be, particularly within the frequent flyer community. We are bunch prone to paying attention to stats, numbers and status….

  • Stu R says:
    12 Apr12 April 07:00

    I noticed exactly the same thing when the ‘pie chart’ appeared, but don’t get me started on BA’s IT ….

    I tweeted them months ago suggesting that the iPhone 6 and 6 plus had been out a few weeks (at that time) and asking if they might ‘optimise’ their app for those models.

    They tweeted back suggesting “we’re always looking at updates, hopefully it won’t be too long” …. still waiting [rolls eyes]!

    Surely if the My Flights app, run by a guy who also has a day job, can be optimised, why not BA’s?

  • Baggageinhall says:
    12 Apr12 April 07:26

    A lacto ovo vegetarian is one who eats dairy and eggs as opposed to a vegan who doesn’t.

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