Originally Posted by
SeamusSA
That's not my experience at all. On multiple occasions I have contacted the airline directly and they have made changes to an itinerary for which a fed agency issued the ticket, including changing the originating outbound flight. It may be that this is possible because I hold a government travel card and any additional cost can be charged to it.
Our agency forbids any carrier from altering a reservation until after travel starts, even though the travel is charged to employee government travel cards. I ran into the same prohibition recently when traveling on DOD's dime.
Don't know why, but that is the way it is.