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?
Married segment logic is a technical control built into inventory of the fare buckets, not a rule or anything of that nature. United doesn't intend to allow you to book the cheaper inventory together on the same itinerary. It would be entirely possible and legal to purchase them on separate itineraries, although you'd lose protection against misconnects, etc. As sbm12 found out, there are ways to trick the United website into breaking the married segment logic (and many other rules, actually.) But the more expensive price is the only one United intended to offer and exposing it is likely to accomplish nothing except for a fix for that bug.