Originally Posted by
mahasamatman
I have to say that I hope this never works and that you get severely punished if you try. Speculative booking like this should be grounds for termination of your account and a chain-wide blacklist. Why not just book a whole plane on refundable fares so you have have it all to yourself?
This was suggested by (and reservations made by) more than one of the Platinum concierges. They also suggested booking at multiple hotels in the area and then checking them just before arrival and cancelling those that don't appear to have suite upgrades.
On another note, Flyertalk seems to be all about "exploiting" the system. If this behavior is undesirable then the rules should be changed, not try and punish people that follow the rules. From my understanding, few if any airlines allow people to book seats without payment, and then usually there are penalties for cancelling to prevent just what you describe.
From what I can see, many hotels seem to allow people to book rooms, with no deposit and cancel within a short duration before stay without penalty. This type of behavior must not bother them otherwise I would figure they would change the rules.