Does this policy is for the Covid relief or it is for indefinite time?

I am wondering about this. In the past when booking an award, the activity of miles deducted from the account is eligible to extend the expiry by 18 months.

Would this still work the same? Because one could do a dummy booking and then wait till the last possible moment to cancel the award, therefore generating 2 activities in the process, with the cancellation being the one that push the expiration the most (18 months from the miles redeposit), when there is no redeposit fee under the current policy.