My previous employer, a very large insurance brokerage, was once offered High Muckety-Muck status for a few key people on the account by the client, a major airline. (I was not one of them.) They turned it down for the same reason.

My first job with extensive international travel had an interesting policy- we could fly Business Class between KC and India but if we chose to fly Coach they'd foot the bill for an overnight in the European hub of our choice- London or Paris, for example. They still saved $$ but it allowed us an extra day to accommodate to the time zone changes.