in a bit of a quandary. I booked a RT business class ticket from BOS-PEK for May back in Feb. Up until yesterday I was scheduled to be in BOS a day before the flight to China. Flight is BOS-ORD, ORD-PEK.

Turns out, I have to take a meeting/dinner in Los Angeles the day before the flight to PEK. So, I called AA to see if they could simply change the first leg of the domestic flight to go LAX-ORD, ORD-PEK (return would go back to original destination, BOS).
They told me that the only way that can calculate the fare change is to do the ENTIRE ticket over. That leaves me with a $8000.00 change fee!! This is non-sensical to me.
I'm AA Plat over 8 years and have flown a million miles on AA.
HELP?
Should I just get on a standby flight from LAX to ORD on to get the ORD-PEK flight? Or, jump on a redeye LAX-BOS (738), hope for the upgrade to first class and try to get some sleep?