Pinseeker, you were wrong. Nice effort trying to argue on behalf of the company but they disagreed with you.
For the rest of us…I learned some useful info recently directly from management. On 19 May 2022, the company changed its rules on deadheads. There was no FCIF or info decimated to the crew force. Management got an email, global travel got an email, and it appears ALPA was made aware based on a rather vague comment in one of their emails to the crew force after 19 May. But here’s what changed:
Starting 19 May, you can no longer upgrade yourself from a business class seat to a first class seat on a scheduled mid trip deadhead flight. Doesn’t matter if you have the bank. Doesn’t matter that before 19 May 2022 you could. Now you can’t. With one major caveat. The limitation is only if you are trying to do it on the SCHEDULED flight. If you want to fly first class instead of business class on a midtrip deadhead, you need to book your ticket on a different flight. Doesn’t have to be a different airline. Just a different flight. Since you are actually changing flights, you must now get approval for the deviation. Now here is caveat number 2. Your request to deviate will be disapproved if the cost of the first class ticket is more than double the cost of the business class ticket. So if you want to fly first class on a midtrip deadhead that qualifies for a higher class of service, find a different flight than the scheduled flight and an airfare that is less than double the accepted fare. And yes I’ve already Ops checked this and it was approved.
It appears this same policy is also going to apply to front and backend deadheads. If you cancel the scheduled business class ticket and book yourself in first class ON THE SAME flight, global travel has been instructed to deny it. Instead, you have to book yourself on an entirely different flight. They’ll approve that.
Don’t shoot the messenger.