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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 …..


How to earn Avios points from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways BA Amex American Express card

British Airways American Express

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British Airways BA Premium Plus American Express Amex credit card

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the UK’s most valuable credit card perk – the 2-4-1 companion voucher Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points, such as:

Nectar American Express

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

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American Express Platinum card Amex

The Platinum Card from American Express

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Run your own business?

We recommend Capital On Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios:

Capital On Tap Business Rewards Visa

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You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus:

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express card

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Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

(Want to earn more Avios?  Click here to visit our home page for our latest articles on earning and spending your Avios points and click here to see how to earn more Avios this month from offers and promotions.)

Comments (29)

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

  • Owain says:

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

    • Wyvern says:

      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:

        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:

          + 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:

    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:

    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:

    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:

    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:

      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:

    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:

    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:

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

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.