I have flown award booking numerous times with zero issues, but this has always lingered in the back of my mind.
Has anyone ever had a confirmed award booking cancelled by the airline?
Can they do this and what happens??
Yes they can as with any tickets paid with cash. I’ve read somewhere that as part of passenger load management, it is general practice for airlines to oversell seats (i.e. sell more seats than they have, expecting some passengers to cancel before the flight). In the event that the airlines need to choose someone on the passenger list to cancel, they usually work their way from lowest priority to highest priority (e.g. Qantas Red deal seats before flex fare seats).
I suspect award seat passengers will get cancelled before flex fare passengers. My speculations only.