There is no business class travel at IBM for anyone (unless they upgrade themselves) and it has been blocked on the online travel reservation system, and Amex is not allowed to book business/first unless they are the only seats left. You can fly a day earlier though to get over the pain of flying in coach. Prior to this for flights over 8 hours it was always at your manager's discretion, and at exec level you used to automatically get business class under certain conditions - but I forget the criteria now.