Aargh! API is driving me crazy!
 

For the 3rd flight in a month online check in is demanding my passport details and claiming not to have them. I have had enough - no OLCI for me this time round. Why does this keep happening? Please, please someone - make it stop. :mad:

Take a deep breath and pour yourself a nice glass of wine.

I'm trying to checkin on a UA flight, first time I'm flying them LH to the US. I'm beginning to think that the BA website is paradise in comparison to UA's.
It insists on having a contact phone number but is incapable of accepting mine, whatever format I try (I suspect it's limited to accepting US phone numbers). It won't remember my passport information, doesn't accept the US address I try and enter. I've given up, let the airport checkin staff cope with the problem, I can't be bothered anymore.

gypseyjaney: I have had repeated API issues within MMB for the last year on four or five LH flights to the US. Interestingly not on any SH flights within Europe. I have spent some time on the phone with customer service and have been told about various systems at the airport that are not in synch with those on MMB. I have never been denied OCLI because sometime after the T-72 [but, critically, before T-24] the data that I know is in the MMB record does get "approved" [my words]. The phone calls I have had inferred that my US passport presents a challenge somewhere in API part of MMB where it is looking for a first US address on arrival but obviously doesn't ask me for it as it knows I am a US citizen. I'm not sure about this as there must be a huge amount of US citizens travelling UK-US who don't get this bug. I might also add that on my SH European hops I use my Irish passport. Quietly I wonder if the system is aware of that and a conflict is somehow showing up which makes API unhappy.

Have you always been able to OCLI in the end or are you prevented? Agreed, it is annoying to see the API alert every time you're in MMB but if it does resolve itself I guess one should have that glass of whatever and not stress too much. Many many many bugs in good ol' ba.com

Perceived wisdom is that if you have put the details into the website and it still thinks it wants something from you, when you arrive at the airport with all the correct documentation everything will be fine.

IIRC, there are some routes on which the foreign government's rules require that you must re-enter your API during OLCI if you want to get as far as getting a BP, even if the API is already in the booking.

No big deal if you don't - you simply can't get a BP until you get to the airport, or change your seat later on OLCI.

I'm not sure why this would drive anyone :mad:.

I think we just have to accept that the website isn't one of the most functional. My current :mad: is the mass of red corrections, connections and cancellations when I log on. They have all been resolved, and yet ....... :mad:

While ba.com is far from perfect a brief visit to TK's shambles of a website will make you very glad for MMB, iPhone BP's and whole host of other functionality.

I fully appreciate that functionality Swanhunter and fear because it already does so much that I want it to do more and do it faultlessly!

As some of you have correctly observed, the real annoyance is that it will not let me do OLCI unless I keep on entering my details each time. So unless I do this it's no seat selection for me. If not for this, I would just ignore it. This has only started happening to me recently and I have a British passport, so I don't know what has happened to upset it. I guess it's the Customer Service route for me if it persists. :confused:

Where are you flying to? Some routes demand the details be entered every time - eg SA. Live with it, it's not that big a deal?

If your route requires API to be entered into the booking, it has always been the case that you're not allowed to OLCI until you have entered the API. This has not changed.

The thing that might have changed is if your API was previously being automatically populated from your BAEC profile, but your passport has expired. I don't know what happens when this occurs, but it may be that the auto-population stops so that you have to enter your API manually again.

It could also be that you're now flying different routes, because API requirements are different on different routes.

There are some routes that also always require the API to be re-entered after you've picked your seat and checked-in, if you want to print a boarding pass (or be able to see the seat map again and change your seat if you don't print a boarding pass). You can't get around this. You just have to do it.Customer Service won't be able to do anything about it if you must enter API and you haven't done so.

Anyway, what is the big deal about putting in your API? Why is it so hard? I have to do it so often that I have memorised all my passport details and all those of my companion.

+1. In fact +100.
I had to input all thew data for my brother in law, his wife and 2 kids last year. TK's website nearly brought me to tears...


To the OP: have you acquired a new passport recently?
Mrs FD and I had similar issues until we updated our passport information in the main EC account. OLCI does not seem to save it to there properly it seems.

That's exactly what it is. One of our household was stranded during an UA IRROPS event a few years back as the phone system would not accept an incoming call from a non US number. This was on s full fare C/J ticket. UA exec offices contacted us a week letter after an email complaint, but could not comprehend the problem, years later it's clesrly not fixed.

Totally agree, TK, are not the only ones, EY's is a joke as is LH's, I actually like BA's systems, as they do actually work (well for me anyway :), i may have just jinxed this..)

Really?

Then why is this demand only made when I fly BA? They are the only airline who make me reenter basic API data that's already in my BAEC profile, 100% of the time. Every single other airline could not care less.

Indeed, not a big deal, and certainly not the main reason I've long since turned my back on BA, but it certainly hasn't endeared them to me.

Johan

Nope, no new passport and no new route either, just home to Malta. I only had to do it for myself and the OH, which was bad enough, but my sympathies go to those who have had to it for their entire families.. There really is no excuse in this day and age. The details are already on the BA system for goodness sake.

If they're in your BAEC account properly, then MMB should auto-populate. It works for me, and it seems to work for most of us who expect it to do this. So you might want to check that part of your BAEC account.

On the routes where you have to re-enter the API after confirming your seat but before printing a boarding pass, you just have to do it.

I'm afraid it makes me feel like Violet Elizabeth Bott - scream and scream- and scream....!