Originally Posted by
nerd
This is not at all a gray area, or a matter of questionable ethics.
You save the company money on a plane ticket, you get reimbursed, per the guidelines they set out.
If you later want to upgrade yourself, that's your business, not theirs.
He is profiting (in the form of an upgrade) by buying a ticket that costs more than the minimum (so that it is upgradeable). He shouldn't do that. The company is not benefiting from that extra spending - he is. He is effectively finding a more expensive supplier for no other reason than self-enrichment. That's definitely unethical - if you switch stationery suppliers to a more expensive supplier because the more expensive supplier buys you lavish gifts, that would be corrupt, this situation is little different, the lavish gift in this case being the ability to upgrade to J.