The problem with traveling the night before is that invariably I will be somewhere else or its the weekend.... If it is somewhere else the customers who are paying large money for my time get upset when I walk offsite at 3pm to catch a plane!
I work exceptionally long hours, get rewarded well for it, however, I personally wont fly down the back of the plane for anything more than 6 hours if I am expected to get off the flight and go straight to work.
My time vs money equation is fairly simple, I fly economy to Oz, its going to cost about 800 pounds vs a 2500-3100 business class fare.
A day of my time makes the company about 1250 so technically I fly economy I need 2 days to recover, this ends up costing the company money. Plus goodwill.