Raffles

Not sure if we have a 'post of the week' winner yet but .... :-)

TravellerFrequently

My thoughts.

I used to work for a major FTSE company.

I was able to pay to upgrade to CE for European flights although there was sometime an issue when the cheapest fare in CE was not as flexible as ET. I did not have any issues and sending the cash to some account worked.

I now work for a much smaller company and when I asked if I could pay to upgrade for Europe flights, I was told 'No' and it caused a minor drama with the CEO involved. As a 'third line of defence employee', he did not want anyone to think I was being given special treatment, even if I paid for the difference.

On a few recent work trips to FRA and LIN, I have paid to upgrade but it changed the flexibility of the ticket and luckily it was not an issue.

I would suggest that the OP bear this in mind.

My head office is a long haul flight away and I will be in J if I travel there, so not an issue, although there is a risk of a non OW carrier!

I would upgrade again at check in, and call the corporate TA to save them contacting my company when they receive the change email from BA.

Was I impressed that the CEO said I cannot pay to upgrade? No.

Does it make a major difference to my life, especially as I can upgrade from time to time? No.

The company pays me quite well and I do not travel that often, as well as being more advanced in years, so no issues.

If I was a lot younger and had to travel Y LH all the time, I would certainly consider the overall package.

LondonAndy

It all depends on the way it is put - if it was phrased the way CWS puts it below, then I'd not have a problem with it, particularly at final interview or offer stage, but if it was at first interview and someone said "I assume I'll get a corner office, will be able to leave at 5 on the dot every day, you don't have a problem with me expensing boozy lunches and I need to take my pet dog into the office - you're OK with all that, aren't you?" it may be different, even though these could all be "aspects of the work".

Good luck to @woodey with the decision making - I'm sure it's a tricky choice to make.....

DocWatson

They do in my business...call centre in Manchester is usually pretty good and will charge personal cards the difference from Y to W. For US travel it's usually £2-300.

Often1

Of course they do. This is common among most corporate TA's. But, it does require the employer, e.g. the TA's customer, to require it.

Not sure why the prior poster thought this was laughable. Perhaps he has a stone age employer.

Calchas

Deleted

Flexible preferences

Of course, in such an extreme example, any employer would rightly be wary. But that is not the context that you referred to when you said you said you would be wary of them being 'needy', which was simply if they asked about the T&E policy:

Now it seems you are backtracking and throwing up a smokescreen.

dulciusexasperis

My advice is to keep your eye on the ball. What is your end game? What will get you there faster?

When I still had to work for a living, I never 'worked for' an employer in my life. I always knew I was working 'for me.' My goal was to be able to stop working as soon as possible and I did so at age 43. What class I flew in did not hinder or hasten that in any way. Why would anyone want to work for a longer period of time than they have to?

Sometimes people spend more time on the small stuff than they do on the end goal they hope to achieve. My choices of which companies to work 'with', was always based on which would get me to my goal faster, not which would provide me with more comfort when I flew. Let's face it, this forum is full of people who spend as much time figuring out how to maximize points and gain 'status' as I spent figuring out how to retire far ahead of what they are ever likely to do.

If I could have got paid the difference between J and Y to fly in Y, maybe I could have retired at 42 instead of 43. Let's see, 24k a year extra for 10 years is 240k. Invested in say corporate/industrial real estate with a return of say 5%(leveraged by 90%) that gets me 120k per year gross income. Huh, some people would be happy to retire on that alone.

This idea that somehow what class you fly in is important, is something I find laughable from where I'm sitting. Not having to fly at all is what is important.

Raffles

Retirement at 40 is overrated, trust me (albeit enforced retirement in my case). That’s why I ended up going back into business.

StuckinITH

Not relevant to the OP since he's going to work for a company but in the US you have to make a distinction between private and public universities (public in the US has a different meaning than in the UK). I have seen the travel policies for some private universities and travel in J is allowed for flights longer than 6 hours if the money to pay for the travel does not come from grants from government agencies. There are fields where it's easy to get research grants from companies and if the contract does not specify that travel in J is not allowed, professors are allowed to travel in J.

flyer200

Related question: For those who use CWT, how does UUA and upgrading using cash practically work?

Do you upgrade at time of booking? How does CWT apply the avios without access to your BAEC account? Are cash upgrades different?

mmxbreaks

Here's another simple way of looking at this: if you're questioning accepting the role with such a sense of doubt then surely you don't see it as a "really good job"?

corporate-wage-slave

Depends if you are ticketed by CWT in the UK (Warrington) or by one of their other many business units. But assuming it is UK based, then UuA may work online, if not a call to BA should also do the trick. CWT don't do the Avios upgrade but they are able to see that it has happened since they lose control of the booking. For AUP, if it's a published fare then it's the same AUP process happens as normal, it can be done at the airport. I don't think POUGs can be done on CWT but since they use BA's booking process NDC directly but it maybe other FTers have seen this.

flyer200

Thankyou

UUA or upgrading via cash always responds with "Sorry, it is not possible to change this booking on ba.com. Please contact your booking/travel agent."

So, you appear to be saying I can call the gold line and upgrade?

I tend to wait until the booking is released T-24 and u[grade online but I have missed out before so being able to call Gold line would be super.

frandrake

In my view, financially sound companies where the CEOs and its first line fly economy are full of s**t. I would actually question how much they really walk the talk on topics like ethics, etc. as usually the more a company talks explicitly about it, the less they practice it.

I think a frequent traveller for business reasons, regardless of seniority level, should be supported adequately by corporate travel policy. Corporate travel is a sacrifice of own personal time. Think about the nights, evenings, sometimes even weekends sacrificed being over the Atlantic flying to a meeting. If you expect me to land and be prepared to be effective, you should provide accordingly.

Only in case of financial troubles I accept the idea (and actually championed it myself) to cut back on travel costs, but when it's done just for image sake, it's complete ........ IMO.