Originally Posted by sogi

To be clear, I think this behavior is awful and clearly fraudulent.

However, to those doubting its effectiveness, think about a scaled up version of this. At T-330 days, OP fully books the D1 cabin. Either using a fictitious corporation, or just lots of random friends. At T-60 minutes, cancels all tickets. Chances are, every single GUC for that flight will clear at the gate.

Clearly, OP isn't doing all that. But each ticket fraudulently stolen from Delta slightly increases OPs chances.