The bean counters in our corporate travel offices don't seem to understand the modern airline business. Fortunately our project managers do. I had to buy a ticket to BCN at the airport not so long ago after a ticketing c*ck up and was amazed and pleased to discover that although there was one economy seat left it was 50% more than the business class alternative. So I flew business and had little trouble explaining the apparent deviation from the rules on my return.
A side effect of this is that I always recommend to colleagues that they check business availability if the booking system shows no seats available in the default economy setting.
Ms Luggage on the other hand is bound by Civil Service rules which say no first class rail travel, even when it is demonstrably cheaper. The tax payer gets screwed just so there are no adverse headlines.