shorthauldad

People are all too happy to merge jet lag and travel fatigue. You might fix the latter - in some cases - by flying J/F rather than W/Y, but I've near heard of an effective way to fix the former faster by throwing money at it.

ckx2

Domestic: Y
EU: J
Americas: J
Asia: J
Oceanic: F

flieduk

Don't most businesses require fully-flex tickets so that the cost difference would be small?

badgersfly

Why would businesses require fully flex tickets?

gooselee

Perhaps in the past. More recently I've noticed companies demanding lowest price and encouraging advance purchase, finding it more economical to pay the occasional change fee or eat an unused ticket than to buy full-flex fares all the time.

flieduk

Because business travel plans often change. However, as gooselee notes it is often cheaper to eat the cost.

CPRich

Our policy is to book non-refundable tickets, and has been that way for the 20+ years I've been here, as far as I remember. Change fees still pale in comparison to the cost difference. We are in the top 20 in terms of corporate travel spend, so it's not a matter of not traveling much. I'm confident we've done the analysis.

In terms of cabin - I think 8 hours is our cutoff for business class being standard. Frequent travels (20 R/T's, or something like that, per year) have the option of upgrading to F, both domestic (from coach) and international (from business). I've never had the $%#$ to actually try to use this policy. I can only imagine explaining why my $5K Emirates flight to Mumbai became $20K.

Tchiowa

Same in the company I worked for. The extra cost that gets tacked on in case of a significant change is tiny in comparison to the savings in the (literally) thousands of flights we used every month. (Some of the areas we flew to were so common and so many people flying at once that in a couple of cases we chartered the entire plane once or twice a week. Used to refer to one of them as "The Houston Express" from Houston to Luanda, Angola.

Our policy was domestic US was always Coach for everyone, including top management. International was always Business for everyone except certain top managers who got First. (ExCom have a couple of private jets so they don't count.) Upgrades were up to you but you paid for them. We had a travel agent we were required to use to book all flights to avoid anyone trying to play games with fares.

ioto1902

Working for an forbes 300 group based in Europe :
BCL for flights above (but not including) 5 hours. FCL only for the top executive committee (20 people out of 130.000+ employees).
Number of hours are total flying hours to final destination.

BCL is no luxury, as it is impossible to work or sleep correctly in Y class, and you are supposed to be 100% operational when you land.
Solo seats are really apreciated, as you can work with a minimum of discretion. I don't basically work on duo seats. I once had a full view of a direct competitor (also forbes 300) finalizing a powerpoint presentation to a major partner in China ...

My company has a contract with a travel agency who knows the internal rules. Once I submit a request online, they come back with several options on a couple of airlines. If I fancy a route that is not on the approved list, I have to get the approval from very high (the above 20 persons) ... so, I'd better have a very good reason (other than trying to get fired).

My annual budget is in amount. So, early booking allows me to fly more.

Calchas

A friend of mine is slightly bored with his job but not wholly unhappy. He thought it was logical to ask for a substantial pay rise, so if his bosses declined it he would have a concrete reason to resign. As such I understand his requested pay rise was very high and was calculated to be totally outwith the budget assigned for his project.

To his immense irritation his bosses were so concerned by the rumours circulating that he had secured a better offer elsewhere they fell over themselves to raise his salary when given the chance.

He tells me (though gritted teeth at a Friday pub lunch) that he is on his fourth pay rise this year and no longer can resign in good conscience.

Don't underestimate yourself.

gglave

Certainly nowhere I've ever worked.

You buy the cheap economy tickets. Even if you threw 1/3 of them away, you'd still be ahead over fully-flexible tickets - And in most cases you don't throw them away, you pay a change fee.

Sheikh Yerbooty

Part-145 maintenance provider with a global presence. Management.

More than 7 hours = business class. No requirement to step off the aircraft and straight into the office. Going East I usually travel on a Saturday, take the Sunday off to get rid of jetlag, and present myself in the office on Monday mornings. Going West, I usually travel on a Sunday to be in the office late Monday (around noon).

On the topic of taking money in lieu of J travel? Not in a million years, unless I was given enough money to pay for the upgrade. In which case, what's the point? I earn enough to make a comfortable living, and have everything I need. Thus, extra money is not worth the hardship of slugging it out in steerage. Besides, what kind of signal are you sending if you accept cash in lieu of J? You're basically saying that J-class travel really isn't necessary, and the next step the company will take will be a logical extension of that.

mandolino

Exactly.

Employees might also be better-rested, more effective and healthy if they gave up alcohol and got to bed early but I've yet to see them demanding Prohibition and mandatory bedtimes from employers.

s0ssos

I know, you should tell Delta which is saying their business class eliminates jetlag

angatol

.....