This is something I have wrestled with for years - my employer pays only for economy tickets, but I like to pay for the difference out of my own pocket and upgrade to Club Europe.

During most of my professional life that was pretty much impossible to do, as expenses would be charged to the corporate card, and I could only ever pay for upgrades after the fact - at which point change feeds would be added on top. My current employer actually allowed reimbursment for expenses on non-corporate cards, so I used a loophole where I would book the economy ticket within policy, expense it, cancel it within 24 hours, and then pay for a Club Europe ticket straight out of my own pocket. I was obviously never really comfortable with this anyway, but I also didn't want to risk waiting for POUGs every time.

For better or for worse, my employer has now introduced a corporate card - so that loophole is no longer available to me. It's probably for the best. But is there any way of paying for the ticket on my corporate card and then immediately upgrading with my personal cash without incurring the change fees?

If you are the one buying the original ticket (on the corporate card, presumably on your BAEC account) then yes, you can call up, amend the booking and use a different card for the fare difference without the change fee. You do need to call within 24 hours, there can be a few hours flexibility on this if it's tricky to get through. It may be that you can simply do it online if it's a straightforward booking, however I think that embeds the change fee even if you do it within 24 hours.

Whilst there has been some debate on this, and you should ensure you are comfortable with any action you are taking, but the upgrade cost may be eligible as an allowable expense and you may be able to offset it against income tax. I warn you - not everyone is in agreement on this point!

In my view buying and cancelling/ changing is a poor choice which an employer can use against you. Many employers will accept a print out of the cheapest eco fare and allow you to book a higher travel class as long as you pay the difference directly. If you have a corporate TA they can usually do this directly invoicing the y amount to the employer and the additional cost to the employee. This is more transparent and protects you more as the employer is aware of everything from the start. It also means you avoid differences in conditions that could become an issue - for instance if the initial y ticket is more flexible than the J ticket you purchase and you need to change or cancel the trip later:

You can't really claim income tax relief on a discretionary upgrade your employer didn't think necessary.

This is very dodgy ground anyway. Policy is not just about cost, it's about perception, the "even the CEO flies coach" thing. The policies are there for a reason, they are part of the contract of employment, and your best bet if you don't like them is either to get an explicit agreement that you are allowed to do it at your own expense, or change to a job which allows business class flights.

Workarounds like cancelling and rebooking in CE would be a fast track to a disciplinary in many businesses (apart from anything else their corporate TA agreement requires a certain number of flights to be booked to get a discount usually).

Technically speaking, HMRC don�t make any stipulation as to the class of travel for it to be exempt from tax, only that it is wholly incurred in the course of business.

If you personally incur additional expense for upgrading business travel you can put it in the employment section of your self-assessment and claim back the tax at your marginal rate.

Having your employer pay for a ticket you bought yourself but then cancelled would be a big no-no I would have thought, however, even if you subsequently bought tickets on the same flight. It wouldn�t be difficult to check the name against the PNR and see that it had been cancelled.

DOI: IANAA but I spend a lot of time trying to push every boundary with mine!

My firm has a strict staff travel policy which, in short, is economy for short-haul and WTP for long-haul. That said, it is possible to pay the difference personally between the allowed class of travel and business class. All of my travel needs to be booked through one of two portals but that allows two different GL codes to be specified. So I will bill the firm-chargeable amount to one GL code and the difference to my personal charge code. I then reimburse my employer either via cheque or direct payroll deduction.

Where things get a little peculiar is when it's possible to book a cheaper itinerary in business class than in WTP. That is 100% against policy. You would need to book WTP even though business class is cheaper. If business is literally a penny more expensive you can pay that yourself, but if it's a penny cheaper to fly in business then that's not allowed. However, at least the policy is now consistent across regions. Previously US-based staff flying to the UK or Europe could fly business class, whereas UK-based staff flying to the US could only fly in WTP.

Is it really worth potentially getting yourself fired for the sake of some tier points?

Thank you for confirming that there is a possible route via the phone - unfortunately online the change fee indeed immediately gets embedded, even within the 24 hour period.

I knew that there would be judgment coming my way, and I agree that there were certain employers where I would have never ever done this, but in my mind the relationship is a two way street. And there are a lot of assumptions being made here that for better or for worse don't apply to every employer:
- That there is a travel policy. My employer hasn't managed to create one in five years because they are too stingy to keep people in HR around for any longer than about 6 months, at which point the story starts again.
- That there is a "Corporate Travel Agent" or a "Corporate Travel Agent Agreement" - my employer is far too stingy to employ people to manage something like that. As I said, I book my own travel, and it comes out of my own pocket first.
- That there is a finance department that can be bothered or is competent enough to respond to menial requests like paying them back for a fare difference, or would know what to do if I want to send them money, with a cheque (how quaint) or otherwise
- And, in terms of trust - that they manage to do things like pay expenses on time, or don't accidentally let employee policies lapse through incompetence...


Fair point, although it would require a modicum of interest and competence, and I think in any case that'd be an unusual thing to do, unprompted, and even stranger to then bring up after the fact. Considering that there are all sorts of ways in which a flight can be upgraded, merely rocking up in Business Class wouldn't really send anyone's Spidey sense tingling I would think.

Now this one I find interesting, because that never even crossed my mind. Are you saying that if you see a travel policy that states that the employer only pays for Economy travel, you consider yourself to not be *allowed* to fly anything else? So no POUGs when a good deal pops up, or using Avios (if someone so chooses)? I don't think I've ever seen a policy that was worded to that effect, and unless it was that would be one interpretation that I'd definitely take issue with, considering that my employer decides to send me somewhere I'd really rather not go in the first place (i.e. anywhere other than my own bed).

A policy is a policy. If you don't like the policy then the route is to go to HR or the travel people and propose a route to what you want to self fund. There is usually a section in the employee manual or you can get clarification by, well, asking?

And yes, this sort of policy on "even the CEO flies coach" absolutely does exist - there are lots of reasons for it but the most usual is that you don't want to be meeting customers on a flight before you've negotiated pricing and you turn left and they turn right; the next meeting won't start well. If you really would rather be in bed than travel in Y, then plenty of jobs allow that, and it doesn't sound like you have the best of relationships with the company anyway. Though beware, unless you're in a very specialised group of employees who can assert their own travel policy as part of their contract, you'll find that most if not all businesses are now quite prescriptive, a very large proportion use corporate TAs via tools such as Concur which are used to enforce policy.

But no-one can know until you ask. Trying to find sneaky workarounds is ill advised, getting permission is the best thing to do.

I don't think it's a two way relationship where corporate cards and expenses are concerned. Any suggestion that you have used the card for unauthorised spending could result in very negative consequences: these matters are taken very seriously by employers.

If things go wrong - say, the upgrade goes on the corporate card in error - then what happens? Perhaps it slips through, or maybe you are invited for a very uncomfortable conversation to explain unauthorised spending on the company card.

Apart from the fact that as I said I don't currently have a policy (or an employee manual worth its salt), all I was saying is that I would take issue with this *interpretation* if the policy merely states that only Economy travel can be expensed, which is how all the ones I have had in the past have been worded. I have not yet had a policy that explicitly stateed that I am not allowed to *travel* in anything other than Economy. And in my line of work I don't have "customers" that I would ever meet on a flight (that's why I'm flying, to get to them), or that I would "negotiate pricing with" (they get me for free), so I'm not quite sure why travel in business class should be a generalised concern, to either them or my employer.
That's what I meant with it being a two-way street, they are great at some things and crap at others, and I acommodate accordingly. Even not having competent back office departments can have its benefits - it just sucks when you're trying to do anything by the book.
Yep, as I said not mine though. If they did, I'd be in a position where I could do this above board, i.e. by speaking to someone that knows what they are doing.
I get that regarding the "sneaky workaround", but business class travel in general? Do people really do that when they either don't have a policy at all (like me), or have a policy that just states that only economy travel can be expensed? I really think that asking for permission to upgrade e.g. on a POUG is taking things a bit too far if the policy doesn't explicitly disallow *travel* in any other class than economy?

I'm not sure I spelt it out clearly enough, my current employer allowed expenses on non-corporate cards because I didn't actually HAVE a corporate card. The whole reason for my post was that I am now getting one, which means that I can of course no longer cancel the booking to rebook, because the payment will no longer go through my personal card, and the whole shenanigans would of course violate what the corporate card is for.

Thankfully, upgrading on the phone within 24 hours seems to be possible without incurring the change fee, and without having to cancel any booking, and the extra charge can be paid on a different (personal) card. That's completely legit to me, and in my mind no different to paying for a glass of wine with dinner during a business trip and putting that on a personal card. If that did end up on the corporate card by accident that would just be an honest mistake, and the employer would just ask for it to be reimbursed out of my own pocket.

If things are as lax and undocumented as you suggest, wouldn�t a better approach here be speaking to your employer/line manager/budget owner to ask them: are they happy for you to book economy, submit the expense, then call BA within 24 hours to change to business? If there is no corporate TA involved it should be pretty straightforward, and having even an informal blessing on this keeps you covered. For simple point-to-point Club Europe tickets, you get the added benefit of same day changes (assuming your employer is insisting on Basic Economy).
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These threads come round every so often and the answer is always - speak to your employer rather than trying to play the system.

Alternatively, just rely on AUPs.