Originally Posted by
mherdeg
Are you totally sure about this? If these trips are actually being fared out with individual-segment fares and if the fares allow end-on-end combinations into a single trip, then I think you are wrong here. Have you looked closely at this specific example?
I do agree with you that it is possible to use united.com multicity search to price out an A->B->C trip using generous per-segment A-B + B-C inventory and covering the trip with a single A->C fare in a lower fare class than is offered in the married-segment A-C-through-B inventory. But are you sure that that is what is happening here? In the fare constructions sbm12 has provided I see multiple fares covering a journey, in which case using inventory per each fare might make sense.
I haven't studied these examples deeply enough to see for sure what's up.
These examples are a bit unusual, because the married segments seem to be forcing the individual segments into different fare classes in certain places, which is counterintuitive. But if you think about it this way, it makes sense:
Sometimes when UA understands more about the context of your trip, they deprive you off availability on a particular segment thereof, in order to set the price in a certain way. That is perfectly within their rights to do, and making them "fix" this will only mean that they keep the obnoxious pricing and deprive us of the opportunity to opt-in to the lower pricing bug.