"Due to rapidly changing partner availability the following flights are no longer available. Please choose another flight or modify your search criteria."

Yes, I'm asking a lot - booking a complex award itinerary to Africa via a few different *A carriers. The UA search engine fails to function when the same flights show up as available on a daily basis, only to be phantoms when I attempt to book them. ET and MS are specifically the problems as far as I my amateur eye can discern. Yet to have no functional search engine makes this very, very frustrating. Expertflyer is linked into the UA system so this doesn't help, either. My least worst option is to just call daily? Is there a time at which ET and/or MS open up inventory?

Any advice? What's the best *A search engine?

Thank you.

ANA's award engine is generally considered the most reliable and the most minimal UI.

Part of these issues are do to the partner airline but that is a different thread,

AC's engine is used by some but the UA is also high on the list.

In many cases, it is best to search segment by segment and then call it in.

Are you try 330+ days out? lots of issues with differ results between the search and booking engines at that point.

Use ANA and the other tools available through KVS. Find your space and then call to book.

I am less than 300 days out and I am searching by segment. EF shows availability as does .bomb but the flights are mirages. I will give NH a shot.

So I am trying to find business seat from CHC to IAD. Of course, there is no availability. However, there were plenty of business award seat between CHC-IST, and IST-IAD.

If I find flights for both segments and reasonable connect time between them, can I call in to book it? Are there any restrictions stitching them together?

Assuming it's a round trip without stopover, is there restriction of #s of flights? Thanks in advance

Given that they are using UA for the inventory, no surprise that they match. :-:
Routing TATL for US-Oz/NZ is not permitted on a single award. You have to go TPAC for CHC-IAD.

Thanks.

So if I find business seats between, say, CHC-ICN, ICN-IAD. Can I call in and stitching them together? Any restriction I should be aware?

Sorry this thread is about incorrect inventory on .bomb for *A awards not routing rules. SBM how common is such phantom inventory and do you have any insight into a potential workaround or timing of inventory refresh?

A quick question to add to this thread, as I'm encountering the same problem - in my case, leaving Africa (Tanzania) rather than traveling there. For weeks, United has been consistently listing phantom availability on a specific Turkish Airlines flight from JRO to IST. The flight is listed on multiple days, but it's a phantom on every date where it's listed (or at least every one of the 4 or 5 dates I've spot-checked).

Is it possible that space will open up on that flight, or should I simply give up and book another itinerary that's currently available?

Yes, there are. "Stitching" a group of local inventories is not the same as a origin-destination inventory being available. Unless you want to pay individualy for each flight, instead of getting a singly priced fare from A to B thru as many C,D,E,F of your choosing, your method most likely is not necessarily going to return the ticket you want. Carrier A may want to sell a local Q fare from A to B and also a local Q fare from B to C. That doesn't mean that they want to sell a Q fare from A to C via B, as they can may be able to make more $$ selling the separate tickets. If you want from A to C, that fare must be available when requesting space from A to C, not from A to B and a separate request from B to C.

Because you find "local" inventory in the class you want on multiple individual legs, does not make it "phantom" if not there when requesting it for a set of connecting flights, it only means that inventory is there on the legs for the single segment price on each leg, but may (or may not) be there for a single price for the combined legs when booked as a connection.

Married segments do not change award ticket pricing and however UA has programmed the fare calculation system, published routings are not taken into consideration. The poster can certainly piece together the itinerary he mentions above and it should price correctly.

UA's search engine is not strong enough to come up with that routing even though is is a perfectly valid one for award ticket purposes.

I understood OP to be looking for award inventory while you are discussing a purchased ticket.

Oops, didn't catch that it was award... U and Matthew r correct.

Thanks everybody. I was confused and de-confused . I am starting plotting the various layover points. ^

I realize this is slightly OT, but I didn't want to make a new thread because the underlying problem of phantom flight availability is the same. Any advice on this challenge, quoted above? I'd appreciate perspective from all of you with a lot more experience than I have!