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For a prime $p$ and positive integers $\ell \<k\<h\<p$ with $d=(h,k,\ell ,p-1)$, we show that $M$, the number of simultaneous solutions $x,y,z,w$ in ${\mathbb{Z}}_p^{*}$ to $x^h+y^h=z^h+w^h$, $x^k+y^k=z^k+w^k$, $x^{\ell }+y^{\ell }=z^{\ell }+w^{\ell }$, satisfies $${\displaystyle M\le 3d^2{(p-1)}^2+25hk\ell (p-1).}$$ When $hk\ell =o\left(p{d}^2\right)$ we obtain a precise asymptotic count on $M$. This leads to the new twisted exponential sum bound $${\displaystyle \left|\sum _{x=1}^{p-1}\chi \left(x\right)e^{2\pi if\left(x\right)/p}\right|\le 3^{\frac{1}{4}}{d}^{\frac{1}{2}}{p}^{\frac{7}{8}}+\sqrt{5}{\left(hk\ell \right)}^{\frac{1}{4}}{p}^{\frac{5}{8}},}$$ for trinomials $f=a{x}^h+b{x}^k+c{x}^{\ell }$, and to results on the average size of such sums.