Originally Posted by
CPRich
if someone I was interviewing told me they consider travel a material part of the job, I'd move on to the next candidate. Travel is something we put up with to deliver solutions and significant change to our clients. That's our job. Not travel.
Travel
conditions are certainly a material part of the "job situation" as the person you quoted said. Just like commute, office facilities, and culture are material parts of the "job situation." Driving to work isn't my job, but I don't think it's unreasonable to want to know whether I'm going to be driving 10 minutes or 2 hours every day. For a job that requires 100% travel, it's not unreasonable to want to know how arduous that travel will be, and the arduousness (arduosity?) is heavily influenced by travel policy. To me this isn't about "am I allowed to earn points in my favorite alliance," "can I stay at 5 star hotels," or "can I fly first class?" But it's about "do I have to fly at ridiculous hours or inconvenient itineraries to stay within the limit?" "Do I have to stay at a run-down Days Inn 30 miles from the job site to stay within the limit?" "Do I have to wait 2 months for expense reimbursements?" etc. Some companies have travel policies that make life much more tiring and stressful than it needs to be, and it's completely reasonable to want to know that before accepting a job.
That said, I do absolutely agree that the time to discuss it is when you have an offer, not during an interview.