I have worked for similar consulting companies, though not AWS. We had to always book an initial ticket that was policy compliant (economy, or higher only if it was similarly priced), and then optionally upgrade the seat. That causes the upgrade to come through as a separate charge.

Later, when submitting expenses, the upgrade had to be marked as a personal expense, to be netted against per diem or paid back directly.

Early in my career managers did a very poor job of explaining that this was allowed.

Of course, I overlooked the scenario that the parent mentioned about paying for themselves.

I frequently took my wife with me on work trips and we would stay a few extra days. I would buy her ticket separately, have separate receipts when we ate out so I could have mine reimbursed and put the extra days as personal in Concur.

Our favorite chain hotel is Embassy Suites where you got a good free breakfast and an afternoon happy hour with free alcoholic drinks so she would benefit without it costing the company.

Funny enough, since expenses reimbursement approval was done by a department outside of the US, they consistently disallowed my hotel expenses because it showed two people in the room even though it didn’t cost more and was within policy. I just had to tell the hotel only to put 1 guest.

I know the hotel check in thought I was having an affair with someone even though my wife was standing right there with me.