Originally Posted by andrzej
I've decided to "test" the waters and called AAdvantage (few weeks back) to do a booking. At that time I did not have the required miles available (not even close), so all I did was to put the res on hold.
Wonderful -- one more Z seat gone from inventory! And not necessarily put back (QF usually does not offer returned Z seats for award redemption again, they hold them until 3 weeks before flight time). If enough people "test the waters" like this there will be very few awards seats available on QF in advance. Even if QF does decide to replace the Z inventory when this fictitious reservation is canceled, it locks out anyone else from booking on those flights/dates (as QF typically has a single Z seat on popular routes/dates). I've been wondering why QF has so many seats available for upgrade shortly before the flight (and so few award seats -- they are these fake bookings turned into upgrades by the airline).