Originally Posted by
John26
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.
The difference is that when you booked your ticket, you were already willing to travel at the price you paid, otherwise you wouldn't have bought it.
The purpose of e-fares (at least in theory) is to encourage people to travel who otherwise wouldn't be travelling, and you (as a current ticket holder) are not part of that target group.