[benjaminRRR]

That's why you have to get your name exact, airlines now charge a lot for re-ticketing, the idea is to prevent this kind of arbitrage. In fact on long-haul travel if you misspell your name the airline will force you to create a new ticket completely and pay whatever the new price is plus a change fee (and you generally can't just cancel as there's often cancellation fees).

If you hold without ticketing you have a limited time period you can hold, furthermore if you hold and cancel above a certain threshold the airlines will get upset and effectively block you from their inventory.