Originally Posted by
zorn
[I][*]Upgrade with cash or miles
It is not possible to upgrade using frequent flyer miles. Air Canada does not participate in the Star Alliance milage upgrade scheme. It is not possible to upgrade using cash at check-in. If you want to upgrade using cash, you should visit the ticket desk to pay the fare difference to business class.
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If you have a fare which has the /CORP ticket designator at the end of the farebasis, this means that a corporate discount of (eg. 10% off in the following example) has been applied to the published fare.
When upgrading these type of fare with cash, the corporate discount cannot be applied to the new fare (which is the executive class fare) if you call AC directly. In order to keep the corporate discount, the rebooking and exchanging of the ticket must be done through your corporate travel agent (who may be reluctant in doing so).
Let's say you have an economy class ticket for which the published fare is $600 (and your company paid $540 after corporate discount), and the business class fare is $3200 ($2880 if issued by corporate travel agent).
If you call AC and ask for an upgrade with cash, you will be charged ($3200-540) plus the change fee on the original ticket.
If you call your corporate travel agent to upgrade with cash (which they may not want to do), you will be charged ($2880-$540) plus change fee on the original ticket.
(Note: In both cases, you will be using your original e-ticket receipt to claim your expenses on your expense report. Alternatively, you could just give up with the upgrading and buy your own Executive class tickets and try claiming them as non-reimbursed employment expenses on your tax return [I think you'll need to fill out a T2200 and get your employer to sign]).