When your flight is cancelled and you’re stuck somewhere overnight, the airline might give you a hotel room for the night. It frequently depends on whether the delay is ‘their fault’ – for instance, the plane had a mechanical problem, or they didn’t have pilots or flight attendants available to work the flight – or whether they consider the issue beyond their control such as weather or air traffic control issues.
If they give you a room, it’s often after a long wait, eating into the time you’re able to sleep. Even airlines that will provide you a room automatically through their app may not have any rooms available (at their discount rate) to provide you. And the room you get may not be the kind of place you want to sleep.
An American Airlines passenger shares that when their flight faced a mechanical delay and they missed their connection, they were “assured [they] I would have..dinner/breakfast paid for and a hotel.”
American Airlines gave me a $12 food voucher to cover my meals and put me up in the most dilapidated hotel room I’ve ever stayed in, and it was infested with cockroaches. filed a complaint with corporate and was told they are sorry for my experience and will strive to do better
Totally dilapidated with cockroaches running around. Numerous complaints in the hotel reviews from other people who say AA sent them there, and met another miserable and angry customer in the lobby when I left early so I could go sit in the airport for 6 hours instead.
— Ad (@RoachAirlines) April 2, 2025
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When you’re given a free hotel room, often it’s worth about what you pay for it.
The Biden administration pressured airlines to agree to cover hotel and meals during long delays that are their fault. But there was no pressure over the quality of those hotels, or the amount of food covered. This passenger got a voucher for $12 to spend in the airport (which is the American Airlines standard, consider adding it to your Starbucks app).
The quality of overnight delay accommodations is not just a U.S. airline issue. Air Canada has sent a man and a woman, who didn’t know each other, to a hotel to share a room. And in China, Hainan Airlines put passengers up in an S&M-themed hotel.
If you are in a position to do so, consider taking matters into your own hands even at your potential expense (though there are ways of minimizing the expense). If you rely on the airline for accommodation, you’re likely to wind up somewhere that you really do not want to stay. And it may take a significant amount of time to get even that – taking away from the limited time you may have for rest before returning to the airport for an early flight the next day. So what do you do instead?
- Rely on your credit card coverage. Pay for your ticket with a credit card that offers trip delay coverage, book your own room and save receipts for it, along with ground transportation and meals. IYou’re assured the property you are comfortable staying in. You won’t wait. And you can look farther afield if need be. Sure, airport hotels might well all be booked. But if you aren’t spending an hour in line to get the room is a 20 minute drive away from the airport (also billed to trip delay coverage) so bad?
Some readers might say that ‘you’re obligated to minimize the insurer’s loss, and foregoing a room offered by the airline fails to do that and obviates coverage’. I do not believe you are obligated to take any room, of any quality offered. And I have never seen coverage denied for this when claimed properly.
- Request a distressed passenger rate. If you don’t have credit card trip delay coverage, and you can’t find a good rate on your own that you’re willing to pay, one alternative to the long line may be the baggage office. Ask there about distressed passenger rates for hotels. If the line is long at your airline’s baggage office, or it isn’t staffed, be friendly and ask at another airline’s baggage office.
- Use points. Airline hotels often are great deals on points, with reward costs based on a hotel’s average daily rate which tends to be brought down by large airline contracts for housing crew. A few thousand points from your stash can get you a far better night’s sleep, more quickly, than relying on the airline.
Airlines may give you a free room when you’re faced with a controllable overnight delay. But you get what you pay for – you probably don’t want to sleep in the room they’re going to give you. There are exceptions, but it can be very much worth venturing off on your own rather than rolling the dice on free.
In the interest of fairness here, I don’t *expect* any hotel to have a roach infestation. Obviously, some do. But I don’t expect AA to personally go to each hotel and inspect it.
The $12 food voucher, on the other hand, sounds a tad stingy given the costs of things these days. If you can actually get a meal for $12, sure. But given airports usually have airport taxes, food is marked up, etc. I have my doubts if you actually can.
Had this happen on way back to my home airport- weather closed it and we were delayed twice- I let the young quadriplegic man near me go first and then the agent gave me a hotel, a few of us went on the same shuttle to the place- it was creepy- hardly slept- and then to make matters worse- they told us to come very early because of the long TSA lines and got through in five minutes. Will certainly get my own hotel next time this happens and check on my coverage with my credit card and/or travel insurance – Unacceptable that only these horrible rooms are given out – don’t expect a 5 star hotel in any way but a clean room is expected-
@Gary: Is this “avoid the airline’s choice” advice true just for US and European carriers? Do Asian and middle eastern airlines offer a better choice?
Who still flies AA? Yikes. Unless you have no other choice, just don’t.
This is a very timely post. I wonder if the original author happened to be on an LGA to DFW AA flight this past Saturday (3/29)? Flight was scheduled to depart at 308p. About an hour before scheduled takeoff the announced delays began coming in. The last announced one was more than five hours later and we still left 30 minutes after that. Long wait for a rep who offered us the hotels (no thanks) and the $12 meal voucher (which is a joke but we took it) after I reminded her of the federal requirements and she checked with her supervisor (another long hold) to make sure I was right. I asked for comp admission to the Admiral’s Club (it wasn’t busy) and the rep laughed. Fortunately we could hang out in the Centurion Lounge, which was filling up with our fellow AA passengers. AA just keeps getting worse.
I had a flight cancellation/voucher happen to me at EWR a couple nights ago. I’ve been reading your blog for years and the first thing I did was looked to see what card I used to pay the tax on an award ticket. It was my Chase Sapphire card (Yes!). Yet, I stood in line for the hotel voucher, changed terminals to find the hotel shuttle (Ubers were over $50) and fought my way on to the undersized hotel shuttle bus at 3am only to stand in line at check-in anyway. The whole time I kept thinking Gary would have taken an Uber to the Jersey City Hyatt Regency 2 hours ago and avoided all this nonsense and would have gotten the qualifying night, the points, the breakfast, 4pm checkout and filed a claim with Chase.
I didn’t do that because it was a thunderstorm delay, delay, delay, cancel and I thought Chase would deny the claim due to weather. Anyway, when I finally got to the airline provided hotel (DoubleTree EWR) it was fine and the $25 voucher covered the breakfast buffet which was so/so. Recovery by TAP not so fine.
Have heard this many times. My most recent personal experience was in Jun 24 with a cancelled United flight at DCA. Through the App I was offered the Hilton or Hilton Garden Inn in Crystal City (BOTH solid choices), and a $24 dinner voucher and $15 breakfast voucher. But YMMV!
I wasnt able to use any Hilton Gold member benefits, but the clerk gave me a wink and a breakfast voucher anyway. lol.
Our experiences in Europe with comp are completely superior to U.S. carriers. Don’t expect anything to get better with DOT under the Felon in Chief’s regime.
The legacy major European airlines usually put me up in good hotels when I have misconnections or long delays. I think elite stays sometimes helps with what kind of hotels I am given during overnight IRROPs.
The US airlines are bad about this when it comes to domestic hotel for overnight IRROPs passengers. The standard within ought to be the same standard of hotel as given to the airline crew — but unfortunately it usually isn’t.
About the legacy major European airlines, SAS has tried to put me in a far away dump of a Comfort hotel far from ORD. [I skipped the hotel and went elsewhere.]
In Europe SAS putS me up at better hotels during IRROPs than what they tried to provide me at ORD T5 in the baggage transfer area between customs exit and the landside public area.
It really depends on the airline and airport. If we in the US had an equivalent to EU261 or Canada’s APPR, at least we could receive several hundred dollars for such a delay, then decide if we want to upgrade our experience for the unintended overnight layover caused by the airline. *sigh*
Just taken care of yourself. If you can afford to fly you can afford a night in a hotel (points or cash) and buying your own meals. People want something for nothing and it amazes me they will stand in line and then are shocked they are staying in a cheap motel they would never reserve.
Just take care of your own expenses and accept it – you will be a lot happier
@AC — You forgot to include: ‘lift yourself up by our bootstraps.’
You’re just wrong. It’s not “nothing” when an airline is at fault for an unanticipated overnight layover.
When did some consumers become so used to accepting abuse that they literally advocate for more beatings.
It’s like a Stockholm syndrome.
@ Gary — I typically try to look at these situations as an opportunity to get a needed qualifying night at Hyatt or IC. More often than not, this works out OK.
Never spend a dollar more than required by the airlines. They see this as a game. Give people poor accommodations when they fail to fly the flight and the people will seek other ways to have better accommodations. The money stays with the airlines and someone else or some other company gets to pay.
If you have an AC membership and have higher status go to the AC if it’s open. They can get you a hotel and if you ask nicely they will give you a list of hotels that come up. The gate agent going to give you whatever.