Booking code availability experiment
 

Hello

I downloaded and read all the instructions for the "KVS" tool. It is very useful along with all the other knowledge from FT. So, I was looking at the tool today, and it had F2, but ual.com had F1

I tried to put 2 tix on hold online, and it would not let me. But it did let me put one on hold. Then, I quickly tried to put a 2nd on hold, and it worked. I've noticed from the past there's about a 1 minute delay from booking a ticket, to when the inventory changes online and goes from FX to F(X-1).

So now I have 2 seats on hold, but the website said only 1 was available, and per my experiment, would not let me book 2 at a time. I check KVS, and it properly shows F0 (as it did within seconds of when I clicked "hold" from ual.com).

Next, I cancel both holds, and now, ual.com shows F2, and KVS of course also shows F2.

Has anyone tried something like this before? I'm wondering what it means. My conclusion is that the KVS tool shows the correct availability, and ual.com is often wrong. Upon messing w/the system, something triggered united to realize that 2 should have been available from the beginning, and now ual.com properly shows F2.

I think it's a weird bug on the website, but thought I'd share my experience here to see what other people thought.

Welcome to FT, fly22much!

Interesting experiment. It sounds to me like either a caching bug or simply a processing delay in the internals of united.com.

I would vote for the delay. I've seen it where ITN and ual.com don't match exactly, but after a bit, they do.

Interesting data on the KVS/united.com mismatch. I tend to agree with you, cache prob on UA.com? KVS has been pretty dead on IMHO. YMMV.