Your problem are guys like me.
My company doesn't pay business class anymore on intra-european flights, even for managers. Because our customers refuse to pay as much for our products as they did in the past. We too need to cut costs in order to survive.
Same here, but even long-haul is scrutinised. I had a trip planned to the Far East and was flying out with LH and back with LX from Dubai. The corporate travel agent called me and informed me that they had to rebook me in line with corporate guidelines and I was flying out and back with EK. The price was almost 30% cheaper. It was disappointing as I much prefer LH/LX and the flight out to Osaka took me considerably longer than originally planned (although being picked up at home with the Limo has its upsides), but I think that to complain would have been a career-limiting move in the current economic climate and the fact that the company I work for recently announced 250 redundancies.