Asking for a friend.

He is currently based in the US. As part of his package at work, he gets a plane ticket home every year. This is only in economy class and must be booked through the corporate travel agent. He wants to fly premium economy and is happy to pay the difference but the corporate travel agent is insisting the ticket be issued in economy and then changed to premium economy with the associated change fee. This is apparently to facilitate how different things are accounted for internally. Any ideas for how to avoid the change fee?