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?

Is he required to book a CX ticket? Some other airlines, especially those based in the USA, don't currently impose change/cancellation fees except for basic economy tickets. This might require an additional connection.

In fact, could he perhaps book a codeshare CX flight, with AA flight numbers on AA ticket stock? They the ticket change would follow AA rather than CX rules, but he'd still be flying on CX operated flights.

Would rather fly an Asian airline instead of a US one. I have also posted in the BR forum.

CX flight on AA code is about 40% more expensive unfortunately. It looks maybe they only ticket full fare.

But thats a good idea thanks. JX on AS stock is actually same price or even cheaper than on JX but its on JX code so not sure if the change rules follow AS. Need to check.

If it's a full fare ticket, there shouldn't be a change fee, just the fare difference, right?

What are the employer's rules about whether the ticket is at the cheapest available fare? Is the employee permitted to pick carrier and route? Or does the employer have a corporate contract fare that must be used?

The American one (AA code CX operated) is full fare by the looks of it but the Alaska one (JX code JX operated) is only E.

When you click through on the AS website, it says "Any changes or cancellations must be made prior to the scheduled departure time and service charges and difference in airfare may apply once the ticket has been purchased." which is a bit vague but suggests there is a change fee so probably JX rules.

Given he is choosing between CX, BR and JX, I am going to assume not cheapest available.

Travel agent saying they can't book the Alaska one. If JX code must be on JX stock. Unsurprisingly useless.

You can't in short, if your contact's company requires the fare to ticketed in the lowest logical fare in coach.

For CX Economy fares ex-USA, change fee depends on fare family, not booking class. As long as the ticket is in ECONFLEX (the 3rd and 4th code of fare basis is "41"), there is no change fee. If the corporate agency needs to book the lowest class but can issue the more expensive ECONFLEX fare, the ticket can then be upgraded to Premium Economy by just paying the change fee (if the agency does not charge another fee). Otherwise, I am not sure if the USDOT rule can be cited for free changes within 24 hours after booking, or if the agency will need to refund and issue a new ticket.

Thanks. I don't think they can issue a more expensive fare. The actual rules of the game seem a bit murky - I suspect a combination of there not actually be real rules and HR and the agency being a bit hopeless - but the parameters seem to you can pick any airline and any flight (within reason) but you must issue lowest economy and then you can eat eat any change fee and fare difference and change it to whatever you want after it gets issued.

He has spent hours on the phone and email with HR and the agency and think will just eat the fees to avoid any further discussion...

My employer has the exact same rule and set-up, it's a pain as it guarantees the agent (AMEX in my case) then gets a change fee plus the fare difference. However, your friend should be be grateful that they even offer that option - many corporate desks refuse to even countenance the upgrade. Beyond breaking corporate rules, or finding a ticket that doesn't have a change fee (note the agent will probably still charge their fee), I think there isn't a way around it. My agency will quote me fares along the lines of cheapest non-changeable, cheapest with a change fee, flexible fare in economy - but that would typically result in an "out of policy" violation for not choosing the cheapest logical fare.

This only works otherwise if they let you buy any ticket you want and then expense back what the agency would have charged, but that seems increasingly rare - we removed the option a few years ago, presumably for compliance reasons.