Michilander

Spent the last three days trying to book a mileage run for January. Found some nice first class fares for A-B-C-A on Matrix. When I tried to book it I got all the way to the purchase page with fare Matrix came up with, but got a message that the flight could not be booked when I hit the purchase button. Tried two other itineraries and talked to the 1K desk twice and was never able to get any of them booked. Was finally able to book the first one in economy. From everything that happened I think that the booking engine allowed me to select a fare with an empty bucket and the system did not figure that out until I tried to actually book it. Anyone else have something like this happen to them recently?

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Are you sure it was an empty bucket or availability existed that didn't meet your booking criteria?

Michilander

Well, every time I tried to book it (total of about 7 or 8 attempts) I was able to select all three flight segments for the fare I was expecting, choose seats and get all the way to the purchase page. If it was an availability problem I would have thought the flights would not have come up for me to choose. Besides, I was able to book the exact same flights from one of these attempts in economy. I have never run into a problem like this before.

whitethunder

This has happened to me before many times

Sometimes trying to book 4 segments multi citi would work for me, sometimes not, not sure if you have tried that (directly on UA site, linking from google flights does not work usually)

Also though it might not meet the fare rules, I tried to book a YYZ-ORD-KOA r/t with a great P fare a few months ago, but it would not let me choose the YYZ-ORD segment I wanted even though P had inventory because it did not meet the fare rules for connections, so maybe try a different connecting flight

Also I get errors sometimes when trying to book on UA if it is in USD (not the currency of my credit card)

If all else fails on the UA site, try some third party ones and hope for the best haha Good Luck

fumje

I not sure I follow what is meant by "purchase page with fare Matrix" — is that the final page when booking with United, into which you enter payment details and click "Buy Now"?

If I did understand, I think I have been having some similar experiences in the last month or two. One example was I tried to book a ticket, using google flights to pick a connection that united wasn't showing in their search, and using the google link to buy from united.com. The ticket included flights going A-B-C-D, with A-B-C served by UA, but it kept giving an error when I clicked to finalise the purchase. An agent took a look and said that the B-C flight was blocking the ticket because it had no inventory. However, if I searched for A-C with expert mode, it showed married segment inventory for A-B-C; it was only if I searched B-C alone that it showed no inventory. Maybe that was the issue although it doesn't really make sense to me. For that time, I wound up giving up and booking a different connection (same C-D flight, so it wasn't the partner inventory that was a problem).

Michilander

OK, just to clarify, I found the fares and flight segments using ITA Matrix, but I did all the booking attempts on united.com from my laptop using the Multi-City tab. United allowed me to select all three segments and offered me the same fare I found on Matrix. But, when I hit the Buy Now button it told me that it could not complete the booking. First 1K agent I talked to was also able to get to the point where she hit the Buy Now button and it told her the same thing. She, of course, had more tools than me and told me there was a problem with the middle segment. That is when I went back to Matrix to find an itinerary without that segment. However, the same thing happened again with the new itinerary.

mahasamatman

Did you try searching with Google Flights? The booking link there is pretty good.

People would be able to help more effectively if you would provide your real itinerary.

sannmann

Exactly. Certain partners (ie, OS) are known for phantom availability.

fumje

From the follow-up description added, I think it is the same problem I have had, which doesn't appear related to partners nor solved by google flights. It seems to be phantom inventory on UA's own flights and can occur with google's booking link.

findark

Were these true multi-city itineraries, with fare breaks at both B and C?

Matrix does not revalidate inventory across transfers if a multi-city search fares a stopover as a transfer. United used to not do this either, but they may have fixed it.

fumje

For my experiences it has always been a through fare (A-D), just trying to pick the connection points manually because of United's limited search results. That does make it hard to figure out the married segment inventory, though, since I can't get it to show expert mode results for A-B-C-D (only A-B-C married and A-B / B-C individually).

It strikes me as quite odd that they'll take you to the buy screen and then block ticketing.

findark

Delta forces fare breaks at every multi-city point even if there is a cheaper solution (as does the UA award search) so be careful what you wish for

jsloan

If UA has done that, that would be extremely unwelcome, as well as extremely new. I've done this as recently as Sunday,

fumje

Sure, although if I can't buy the cheaper solution sometimes, aren't they in essence doing that behind the scenes in those cases? I'm really not sure how to interpret what's happening, but I guess the question is whether it's intentional or unintentional. At least it's not a frequent issue for me, which suggests unintentional.