I'll try to keep this short. I spent the last few hours looking up the nature of the so called dummy tickets, and I could not get a direct answer to one question I had. Is it just a document I pay for to save on flight tickets? From what I learned, you basically pay a website like Visa Reservation 50 bucks, and they allow you to write whatever information you want on a document before emailing it to you. If the visa gets denied for something that isn't related to the itinerary, you don't get any refunds. If you do get accepted, you go pay the full price for an actual plane ticket and accommodation etc. Is that the gist of it?
So, in order to not pay the full price of plane tickets, I pay for a document from a website that says I'm getting a ticket. Then I either pay the full amount to the airline company + hotels anyway, or I get denied and the upside is that I only spent 50 bucks on this document instead of a plane ticket?
TLDR: Are these itinerary services just (still somewhat costly) safety nets? Their whole purpose is an insurance that makes you pay a fee before your visa so you don't lose out on more if you're denied? (And if you're accepted you just spent that extra 50 bucks to be safe before actual reservations).