About 10 years ago I was an employee of a global financial services firm, but worked with a subsidiary that had employees literally all over the world on a weekly basis, and they used a small, local, responsive travel agent who seemed to be able to help with all the IRROPs that would happen. I asked when I started flying to their office on a fortnightly basis if I could pay the differnence between Y (travel policy) and J, and they were happy with that. That was the first year that I got Gold, and haven't looked back since - they have a lot to answer for ;-).
In terms of the original post, if the job was that good, and the travel was to (say) JFK rather than (say) SYD, then I'd take it - the path not taken and all that.
Currently as the Head of HR if a candidate started asking me about the T&E policy during the interview process it would start the alarm bells ringing for me...