So here I am, trying to book an SFO-JFK flight using a US$200 E-Cert for late January. I'm navigating dot bomb in the usual way, getting funny fares (0.01 r/t!) but understandable since there IS a coupon. Taxes A/I is about US$15 or so.

Then I try to purchase the ticket. Big scary error message.

We’re sorry, but due to technical issues, the quoted fare for your selected itinerary is not currently available for purchase. To purchase the itinerary you selected, please contact united.com customer support at 1-800-589-5582. Please be advised that fares may be higher than originally quoted.

Got that four times on two different browsers. Then I call the number and we walk through the itinerary I want to purchase. He says that he has to manually make the reservation and that I will have to wait 24-48 hours before it gets ticketed. Apparently this happens a lot but no one has thought of fixing the glitch. I reply that this is not acceptable and I'm trying to upgrade these flights. 4 minutes later, itinerary loaded into dot bomb.

Do they make these purposely hard to redeem so you won't use them?