Booked a family vacation trip(5 tix) on May 27th on United.com. Process went smoothly(did it late in the evening). Got confirmation that it was processed and should be ticketed, PNR number, etc. Then a day after my wife/kids tell me that the reservation is not visible in their accounts. So yesterday I was checking my account and noticed it was not there as well. I tried to manually add it by the PNR, no luck. Called 1K desk and they can't find it either. Not by the credit card, not by the PNR, no trace.

Of course, my credit card shows temporary authorization from United for the right amount though. So then I decide to just rebook it, as, thankfully, the prices were still the same. HOwever, I did redeem an electronic certificate on my previous reservation. So...I tell the agent about it, she looks it up, and tells me that that computer says it was redeemed on... you guessed it, the PNR I booked on the 27th that does not exist anymore!

To United's credit, they did resolve it on the spot by putting the credit back into that PIN and applying it to my new reservation, but I am still at a loss how/why this situation would happen. Glad I caught it in time and there was no significant harm other than 30 minutes on the phone with United, but this could've been a disaster..