Originally Posted by
docbert
Option 1 - someone dropped probably a few million miles on booking multiple seats on dozens of dates just in case they want to fly one of those dates for 'free' (in economy!)
Option 2 - The airline realized they had accidently release award seats on a new route where they hadn't intended to and removed them.
Sure, I guess option 1 is possible, but my money would be on option 2. One way or another United isn't going to care what happened. If it truly was option 1 then NH might be interested, but odds are they already have systems in place to detect such abuse if that really is what happened.
I don't think it's either of these. I think it's a scalper network who's using UA miles to try to resell these seats for profit. See the UA857/858 thread for similar shenanigans.
In any case, a UA corporate investigator should be able to figure out whether it's my scenario or one of yours in 30 seconds. I'm just looking for contact info so the right person at UA can take a look at it.