United MileagePlus (Consolidated) - Duplicate segments in Star Alliance Award ticket

I have spent all morning calling UA and LH about this with no solution. Here is the problem:

1. I got an economy award ticket for my wife. I got the ticket from United, but all the flights are on LH and SA.

2. I called UA today and was able to pay additional miles to get her on business class for most of the segments.

3. When I tried to change her seat assignments at the LH web site, the system does not let me do it. I called LH and the reason is that some ef the flights are duplicated (both economy and business for same flight), and they cannot change the seats either. I also see the duplicates in the LH web site. I have called the UA 1K line and LH three times, without any luck. The last time, the UA agent actually spoke to an LH agent, told me that there were no duplicates, patched me to the LH agent and hung up, and then the LH agent tells me that THERE ARE duplicates.

I would appreciate any suggestions. I have spent all morning on the phone and have not made any progress.

Thanks

My understanding is that PNRs are essentially small text files. When they edit the segments, I suppose things can get out of sync between the two systems.

I wonder if there is a way for LH to request a sync from UA or vice versa.

I had a similar problem. I had two first class seats an the LH A380 from MIA-FRA on Dec. 29. LH could see the seats but UA could not. LH said UA had to correct the problem. CO said there was no problem. I also had LH first class seat DUS-MIA on Jan. 16 & a first class seat FRA-MIA on the A 380 on Jan. 17, plus few other connecting flights to/from various destinations. I called both UA/CO and LH many times. I could not get the problem corrected until I should up at the airport on Dec. 29. The guy who got my extra first class seat on the A380 from MIA-FRA said he was trying for months to get a first class seat for his wife. I told him I tried for months to cancel the extra seats but could not. It is that old Continental computer system, since it was a CO award. I think they use vacuum tubes in their computers.

Does anyone remember when computers used vacuum tubes?

I was able to resolve the problem, after a number of calls to UA and LH.

I asked the UA agent to have her tech support or supervisor call Lufthansa. The person was put on hold by LH and then dropped. Then, the same person (tech support or supervisor) went into the LH computer system and was able to cancel the duplicate flight. This had to be done twice because this person saw only one duplicate at first.

Now, I can change seat assignments.

The process should have bee easier, but at least it is done now :)