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Old Nov 22, 2018, 9:13 am
  #1  
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Help me understand why I can't book this route / fare
Multi-city itinerary, D fare -

United 58San Francisco (SFO)

Fri, Nov 30 1:45 pm
Frankfurt (FRA)

Sat, Dec 1 9:55 am
11:10Boeing 777Business (D)Lufthansa 760Frankfurt (FRA)

Sat, Dec 1 1:20 pm
Delhi (DEL)

Sun, Dec 2 1:30 am
7:40Airbus A380Business (D)United 8907Delhi (DEL)

Sun, Dec 9 3:35 am
Frankfurt (FRA)

Sun, Dec 9 7:35 am
8:30Airbus A380Business (D)Connection at FRA5:15United 8827Frankfurt (FRA)

Sun, Dec 9 12:50 pm
Washington (IAD)

Sun, Dec 9 3:50 pm
9:00Boeing 747Business (D)











I'm getting -Error

We’re sorry, but united.com was unable to complete your request. Please try later or contact united.com Support in the U.S. and Canada at 1-800-396-1751; the U.K. at 0800 028 5003; elsewhere use the local phone number.
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 9:56 am
  #2  
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Married segment bucket checking errors when using multi-city search. The root issue is with ITA Software's code (used by the UA fare search engine). There's no actual D bucket availability on the married segments, just the individual flights. You can see this clearly on EF.

UA 58 J3 C0 D0 Z0 P0 Y6 B6 M6 E9 U6 H4 Q0 V0 W0 S0 T0 L0 K0 G0 N9
UA 8906 J3 C0 D0 Z0 P0 Y6 B6 M6 U6 H4 Q0 V0 W0 S0 T0 L0 K0

There's an active thread on DL forum on this very same issue.
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 10:17 am
  #3  
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Originally Posted by LBJ
Married segment bucket checking errors when using multi-city search. The root issue is with ITA Software's code (used by the UA fare search engine). There's no actual D bucket availability on the married segments, just the individual flights. You can see this clearly on EF.

UA 58 J3 C0 D0 Z0 P0 Y6 B6 M6 E9 U6 H4 Q0 V0 W0 S0 T0 L0 K0 G0 N9
UA 8906 J3 C0 D0 Z0 P0 Y6 B6 M6 U6 H4 Q0 V0 W0 S0 T0 L0 K0

There's an active thread on DL forum on this very same issue.
Thanks, the UA agents on the phone can only price it at 8.2K ticket... bummer. any workarounds?
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 10:41 am
  #4  
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Originally Posted by justsawaufo
Thanks, the UA agents on the phone can only price it at 8.2K ticket... bummer. any workarounds?
You can try to push it to UA from flights.google but it will probably find the routing and then fail when you try to book. Worth a shot.
Last edited by milepig; Nov 22, 2018 at 3:35 pm
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 10:44 am
  #5  
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Originally Posted by LBJ
Married segment bucket checking errors when using multi-city search.
wait...does this actually happen now on UA.com? At least until fairly recently, it didn’t check married segment availability on the web site before purchase, so you could sometimes get a lower price by looking A-B, B-C vs. A-C. And you could buy it.

Youd also think that maybe instead of erring out, on final check it would tell you something like ‘sorry - that fare is no longer available - the available price is now $X’.
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 10:46 am
  #6  
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Originally Posted by milepig


You can try to push it to US from flights.google but it will probably find the routing and then fail when you try to book. Worth a shot.
Google Flights also uses ITA Software code (they bought the company) and has the same issues with multi-city searches. It's trying to be smart by combining the multiple segments under a single fare, but uses individual segment bucket availability instead of married segment bucket availability when choosing the fare. If you do a one-way or roundtrip search, it will correctly check the married segment availability on the flights and quote the correct fares. Google Flights added a hack for Delta multi-city fare searches where it does an additional check at the end for actual married segment availability and corrects the fare quote. They don't appear to do the additional check on UA and AA fares. The ITA Matrix website search still gets it wrong for all airlines.
delta.com used to have the same issues, but they simply tuned out the ability to combine segments under a single fare with multi-city searches and quotes separate fares for each segment. This means it won't produce the cheapest possible fares in most cases, but it won't produce erroneous fare quotes either.
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Last edited by xliioper; Nov 22, 2018 at 11:02 am
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 10:58 am
  #7  
 
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I am able to price this itin in D class for $4267, UA agent should be able to do it as well.


Code:
LAST TKT DTE 22NOV18 - SEE SALES RSTNS                                          
------------------------------------------------------------                    
     AL FLGT  BK   DATE  TIME  FARE BASIS      NVB  NVA   BG                    
 SFO                                                                            
XFRA UA    58 D    30NOV 1345  DWNC76S         30NOV30NOV 2P                    
 DEL LH   760 D    01DEC 1320  DWNC76S         01DEC01DEC 2P                    
XFRA UA  8907 D    09DEC 0335  DWNC76S         09DEC09DEC 2P                    
 WAS UA  8827 D    09DEC 1250  DWNC76S         09DEC09DEC 2P                    
                                                                                
USD  3024.00      30NOV18SFO UA X/FRA LH DEL1512.00DWNC76S                      
                  UA X/FRA UA WAS1512.00DWNC76S NUC3024.00                      
USD  1106.00-YQ   END ROE1.000000                                               
USD     5.77-YC   XT USD 18.30-US USD 18.30-US USD 3.96-XA                      
USD   131.64-XT   USD 7.00-XY USD 5.60-AY USD 20.56-DE USD                      
USD  4267.41      48.52-RA USD 1.10-IN USD 3.80-WO USD 4.50                     
                  -XF SFO4.50
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 11:25 am
  #8  
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Originally Posted by LBJ
Married segment bucket checking errors when using multi-city search. The root issue is with ITA Software's code (used by the UA fare search engine). There's no actual D bucket availability on the married segments, just the individual flights.
New term: "Married segment unavailability."
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 12:47 pm
  #9  
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The funny thing is if I go to UA website, I can search and find the same routing, same price for D fare, but upon booking I get an error. If it's searchable on UA website it SHOULD be bookable by agents at the same price. But it's not...I called many times. no luck.
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 1:09 pm
  #10  
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Are you building this using multi-citu???

If not, what does that yield?
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 1:17 pm
  #11  
 
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Originally Posted by LBJ
There's no actual D bucket availability on the married segments, just the individual flights.
But doesn't using the native LH number avoid this? It might change the fare, but I didn't know married segments came in to play for multiple marketing carriers.

OP, I would check American Express. I have had very good success having them book tickets that would not book on united.com. (Or would be more expensive)
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 1:17 pm
  #12  
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Originally Posted by WineCountryUA
Are you building this using multi-citu???

If not, what does that yield?
I'm building this multi itin on UA website and price it at ~4.2K
I'm entering my credit card info and then it says "error, call web support"
I called the 1K line a few times, very unhelpful, some agents say they can price it at 8.2k, others says there is no D inventory

any suggestions?
Last edited by WineCountryUA; Nov 22, 2018 at 2:37 pm Reason: Using symbols, spaces or other methods to mask vulgarities is not allowed.
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 2:38 pm
  #13  
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Originally Posted by justsawaufo
I'm building this multi itin on UA website and price it at ~4.2K
I'm entering my credit card info and then it says "error, call web support"
I called the 1K line a few times, very unhelpful, some agents say they can price it at 8.2k, others says there is no D inventory

any suggestions?
Did you talk to reservation agents or web support?

Unfortunately today is a poor day to get access to the more experienced agents
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 3:33 pm
  #14  
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Originally Posted by gokeeper
I am able to price this itin in D class for $4267, UA agent should be able to do it as well.

Code:
LAST TKT DTE 22NOV18 - SEE SALES RSTNS
------------------------------------------------------------
AL FLGT BK DATE TIME FARE BASIS NVB NVA BG
SFO
XFRA UA 58 D 30NOV 1345 DWNC76S 30NOV30NOV 2P
DEL LH 760 D 01DEC 1320 DWNC76S 01DEC01DEC 2P
XFRA UA 8907 D 09DEC 0335 DWNC76S 09DEC09DEC 2P
WAS UA 8827 D 09DEC 1250 DWNC76S 09DEC09DEC 2P

USD 3024.00 30NOV18SFO UA X/FRA LH DEL1512.00DWNC76S
UA X/FRA UA WAS1512.00DWNC76S NUC3024.00
USD 1106.00-YQ END ROE1.000000
USD 5.77-YC XT USD 18.30-US USD 18.30-US USD 3.96-XA
USD 131.64-XT USD 7.00-XY USD 5.60-AY USD 20.56-DE USD
USD 4267.41 48.52-RA USD 1.10-IN USD 3.80-WO USD 4.50
-XF SFO4.50
That's strange. Looking at UA/LH or UA/UA I am not seeing and D inventory. I wonder if this would sell. Is it a POS restriction perhaps?

Originally Posted by justsawaufo
The funny thing is if I go to UA website, I can search and find the same routing, same price for D fare, but upon booking I get an error. If it's searchable on UA website it SHOULD be bookable by agents at the same price. But it's not...I called many times. no luck.
Originally Posted by justsawaufo
I'm building this multi itin on UA website and price it at ~4.2K
I'm entering my credit card info and then it says "error, call web support"
I called the 1K line a few times, very unhelpful, some agents say they can price it at 8.2k, others says there is no D inventory

any suggestions?
Your problem is that you are building a multi-city trip. Each segment alone is available, but not the combination. It is how married segments work ... well sometimes it is the other way around as well. For me SYD-SFO-BOS the SFO-BOS segment was only available in C-class but combined with SYD-SFO it went down to P!
So anyway, there is no way around your problem here with United.com as the system will ultimately validate the married segment and then finds no 'D' available.
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Old Nov 22, 2018, 3:53 pm
  #15  
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Historically, the multi-city approach worked well for getting around this. If they fixed this on the website, that's very disappointing. I wasn't going to submit cc details so I can't confirm one way or the other, except to confirm that the UA site will go to seat selection with the itinerary priced in D.

I'm not sure how you priced that gokeeper, as even using the native codes I see


30NOV18 SFODEL
> 30NOV18 SFOFRA UA 58 : J5 C3 D2 Z0 P0
> 01DEC18 FRADEL LH 760 : J6 C4 D0 Z0 P0


ITA will price though, and it's a very odd married inventory as I see also


30NOV18 SFOFRA UA 58 : J5 C3 D2 Z0 P0
01DEC18 FRADEL LH 760 : J6 C5 D3 Z1 P0


but LH is known for being really squirrelly with inventory.
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