I know some of us have had periodic success convincing Elite agents to waive the change fee when we (or our companies) buy a discount fare and then want to pay-up to full Y or an FC fare; but there is no established policy that permits this.

There is such a policy at Delta. Although you may need to escalate to a supervisor (or two) in order to get the change processed for free, there is a policy which permits customers to exchange their ticket for a full fare or FC fare (including Q-UPs) without penalty. It's a win-win for both parties.

Since most of my travel is now paid for by my company, I've started taking my return flights from SEA to FLL on Delta and paying the fare difference to rebook in A class - one of the main reasons being I don't want to be stuck with a $100 fee in addition to the extra fare if I do this on CO.

I'd like CO to consider establishing a policy which permits a customer who buys a discount economy ticket to upgrade that ticket to either Y or R/A/C/D and have the change fee waived. I'd prefer to see the policy cover any increase in fare - for example, the company buys Q or under, and the customer re-issues at V or higher - but I think that might be a stretch. I'd be satisfied if it covered upgrades to Y or FC.

I don't see any cost or negative impact to CO by having this policy. In fact, the process could be built into the web system so the policy would apply to any fare upgrade done to an E-ticket online without intervention from an agent.