Our travel, though booked by our administrators, is paid for by our clients and is handled by our corporate travel agents.

I fail to see how saying "I need to travel to New York tomorrow morning" brings any heavier workload to an admin than if I made that request weeks in advance. She simply needs to fill out a travel requisition form, forward it to the travel agent, and say "book the least expensive flight that matches our travel policy". If that means that we end up paying full fare Y, so be it. The business case justifies the expediture.

I appreciate that I'm asking her to drop what she's doing to spend the 15 minutes it take to complete the necessary paperwork, but that's no different than asking her to type an urgent memo/email/report.

We stay in business by working with our clients, and meeting their demands as often as is possible. I think she forgets who pays our salaries.

It's the same type of mindset as the administrator who begrudges buying a seat in business class, thinking that flying in business class is a real treat and that I'm spoiled for flying that way. Ask her to do 4-5 longhaul flights a week, she might see it differently.

When I do have to travel last minute, I tend to investigate routings and availability myself, hand her the details of the exact itinerary I want, and let her book it with the corporate travel agents. I don't see how this radically increases her workload.

To be fair, this was a blanket note sent to the entire department, not one specifically directed to me. I like to think that I'm a fairly considerate traveller.