score:3
As suggested in the comments, I called United, and after several minutes of them "researching" my fare terms they could finally tell me that there is a penalty (in my case slightly higher than what I would have saved buying the ticket at the current lower price), i.e. the value displayed on the cancellation page is not the refund amount.
When β out of pure curiosity β I asked about my fare basis code, they told me that I would have to be put on hold so that they could "investigate" it (for which I sadly didn't have time).