Sometimes companies / firms don't understand how these things work.
I had a colleague who was forced to fly Virgin rather than BA. He had status with BA but not with Virgin, but Virgin was slightly cheaper (but not at all materially given the total project travel budget!!). So Virgin it was.
In the end, Virgin had an aircraft swap, so he was bounced from the flight - resulting in a day's delay and loss of client time, etc. Had the same happened with BA, he'd have been protected due to his status.