Originally Posted by 1Aturnleft

If met with resistance to change the routing, the passenger can request a FTV under booking with confidence in a similar way a revenue ticket holder can. You get your Avios and fees/taxes already outlaid held in credit. They can then book the alternative route and use the FTV as payment thus negating the £35 change fee to the original Avios booking. Most agents will figure out what's happening by this point and simply waiver the change fee and save themselves double the workload of cancelling the first booking and rebooking the second but there are jobs-worths in every profession I suppose.