My prior employer was one of those F100 companies that has a Y-only policy for the rank and file (C-Suite and one step down of course had access to J/F/Private Jet).

Two craziest trips I ever took:

1) SYD for 30 hours (arrived in AM, event next AM) and then we flew to Singapore that afternoon, had another event the next morning and then flew to NRT early the next morning on the Delta flight

2) BKK for maybe 14 hours? Landed around 11pm, got to the hotel around 12am, woke up at 6am, gave a talk at 9am, was on a plane to Singapore by 3pm (thankfully was then in Singapore for a few days)

Current place has a reasonable policy — PE for international and if you travel enough in a 12 month period you are eligible for J for the next 12 months. That hasn’t been too bad and all but one time, I’ve been able to clear UA MUAs or PPs from PE to J. And to their credit they’ve changed hotels with inflation.

The most annoying change to our policy is that Concur now seems to be using BE as the baseline for determining if you are within the margin for ‘lowest reasonable cost’ instead of using just regular Y fares

Way back in the day, the consulting firm I worked for had a J over 5 hours policy on the books but despite regular IAD - LAX and IAD - LAS flights, I was never the beneficiary (although I was just an analyst so wasn’t about to go against what the rest of the team was doing even if the policy said I was in the clear).