.

Thats what I was trying to ask about. Using multi-city in the past hasn’t re-validated prior to purchase with married segments. Think I’ve had something similar (on all UA, in Y though) done within the last year at least.

On the the other hand, Im wondering if this is the same kind of issue I faced a couple of weeks ago trying to book a trip to BLR (with return from TPE), where I got the same error after plugging in my card info, also with an LH connection in FRA. I initially thought it was a ‘you really shouldn’t try booking on the UA site on a Friday night’ Kind of error. I was told a couple of different reasons why it wasn’t working, turns out LH wasn’t confirming their inventory (even though LH had V space on the FRA-BLR flight). I was also really confused because doesn’t it usually tell you something specific about the inventory no longer being available if it’s inventory. I couldn’t figure out if for some reason UA didn’t like the card I gave it, it didn’t like that I had a lap infant on the booking, etc. in my case, an agent eventually did something and left us on the UA segments in V, and somehow had us put in the LH segment in Q, though didn’t charge me anything extra (I was a good little buyer and asked about it, but they said because I was on the phone for an hour and a half with them (and that didnt even include the 3 prior calls), they’d just honor it.

After hearing this story also, I do wonder if it’s soemthng related to LH, as they’re inventory is supposed to be in real time so theoreticallly should be available to book at the moment one is searching.

It’s neither a new term nor a new phenomenon. Despite some confusion on this board, married inventory refers to the practice of filing inventory information for itineraries that consist of multiple flights. So, for SFO-IAH-AUS on UA1234 and UA2345, UA will file three sets of relevant inventory: SFO-IAH 1234, IAH-AUS 2345, and SFO-AUS UA1234/UA2345. There is absolutely no guarantee that they have anything in common.

I don’t think it’s a mystery at all. LH is applying married inventory restrictions that do not get published through to the GDS, and that gets caught when UA attempts to validate the ticket with LH prior to purchase. Specifically, LH marries inventory on overnight itineraries (I think the 1:30 AM departure is being considered as next day) whereas UA (and the GDSes) don’t appear to do so.

I’ve had this exact issue happen to me. There’s no workaround, because ultimately LH is the arbiter of what inventory they want to sell, and it’s an LH inventory check that’s preventing this from pricing.

I'd like to think this is the easy acceptable explanation, however, if I understand this correctly, this also implies that a travel agent (say gokeeper in this case) would be unable to book this inventory. If I may generalize the statement, it implies that what a GDS offers to a travel agent isn't the slightest guarantee of actual availability, since an air carrier can deliberately publish fabricated inventory to the GDS, then happily accept/decline whatever it wants when an agent requests a reservation through the GDS. If this is true, airlines wouldn't wait to exploit this in their favor (and to the TA and their customer's detriment).

While I do agree that small fluctuations are possible due to reservations being sold/canceled, it is my understanding that there's no systematic publication of inaccurate information by airlines into a GDS, and that what is offered through a GDS is an indication of actual, unfabricated inventory with the reasonable expectation for an IATA-licensed TA that the airline is willing to honor reservations for the inventory it publishes. However, I may be wrong here, or it might really be an LH thing. Hoping gokeeper or another TA will chime in.