Originally Posted by
mgcsinc
There's nothing unsavory going on here except a pro-consumer bug.
I suppose that's one way to look at it.
Another is to say that United is both greedy AND stupid in its pricing/fare bucket structure.
United wants a spoke and hub system but wants to charge nonstop prices. Greedy.
But it can't set up its website to differentiate between a married connection and a series of nonstops. Stupid.
As Sykes points out, even if United fixed the stupid part, one could still just nest a series of lower fare-bucket tickets rather than combining them.
This is, as smb12 says in the OP, very much a buyer beware situation.