Today I booked 6 tickets on a South African Airways flight via united.com. The reason for this is that the SAA website is extremely ticky and Expedia prices were $100 more per ticket. Weird, I know. So I finalize the purchase and get a confirmation # for both UA and SAA and an email from UA saying that b/c it's a codeshare flight, it is not finalized until SAA approves it. This worries me b/c just after I booked, I refreshed my page to see that United's price is now $100 more per ticket (and SAA is, too, now). So apparently I must have purchased in the brief (minutes!) window between when SAA upped their price and UA's system caught it. UA must lag a little. So now I'm worried that SAA will reject the fare and force me to repurchase for an additional $600. And it seems we are the only people on this flight (for next July) per the seating chart and for weeks it has been the lower price. I'm starting to think that my searching on various sites triggered a rate raise.

As for my concerns over the delay in SAA confirming, note the language in my UA email below. What do you guys think? Should I relax?

"This notification is being sent to you because one or more flight segments associated with the confirmation shown above is on a codeshare partner(s). This itinerary will remain in effect for 24 hours through Tue., Oct. 1, 2013. Once our codeshare partner accepts this reservation your fare will be guaranteed, your ticket will be issued with the form of payment authorized and a receipt will be sent to you."

Your question relates to how UA's ticketing system - SHARES - interfaces with those of other (*A) carriers. As has been discussed numerous times in the UA forum, there can be issues with codeshare tickets and, particularly, partner award tickets. You should call UA and ask for an update and then call SA using the confirmation number(s) from UA and confirm the reservations are showing in its system.

Thanks, UAPremExecflyer. I appreciate your advice. I did search the UA forum but as a relative newbie to flyertalk, I find the search engine difficult to use productively. I'm learning. So, for what it's worth to others who may happen to stumble on this thread:

1) I called. UA rep said that the fare is guaranteed but the seats aren't until SAA codeshare airline confirms. So if there are seats, the fare stands.

2) I got an email 24 hours later confirming my flights and the original (lower) fare.

3) I'm positively convinced that my searching all over the place (Expedia, Travelocity, SAA, United, etc) triggered a rate increase. Only the date that I checked increased the rate; every date for the other 29 days of that month came up with the lower fair. When I purchased the tix, there appeared to be not 1 seat sold on that flight as I chose my seats. There are now 6 seats taken, mine. Take from that what you will.

I think it only means that you bought the remaining 6 seats allocated to that fare bucket, so after you made your reservation seats are only available at higher fare bucket(s). Some people do not have seats assigned even if holding confirmed reservation.