It also drives away people from booking in advance with the now defunct promise of a refare if your fare drops. Since e-fares are designed to encourage impulse buys at the last minute, I'm more of the mindset for these trips of "well if they don't put it on e-fare I'll just go some other time" whereas before I wouldn't hesitate to book in advance and figure I could get a refare if the fare dropped. Now I'll just go on these impulse trips only if they put it on e-fare for that weekend (not hard to do between SFO and Southern CA airports if you are flexible). Yet in the past, if I bought the higher fare and it simply didn't drop it was to United's benefit.

May not make a lot of sense, but basically I think United is selling themselves a bit short. Again - it's an impulse buy.

Also, why not advertise this through all channels (i.e. Orbitz, etc) instead of just savy customers who know to try the obscure e-fare link through (Planning Travel > Special Deals > e-Fares). After all United keeps reiterating that its Economy cabin customers care about price more than anything else...