Woman Forced To Share Bed With Stranger After Flight Delay—How To Avoid This Airline’s Shocking Blunder

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. Or they might not be willing to do one room per passenger, either.

Here easyJet was requiring passengers to double up in hotel rooms even if they weren’t related and didn’t know each other. One woman reports being told that if she didn’t agree to share a room with a man she’d never met, she’d have to sleep in the hotel lobby. She wasn’t even given a room with two beds.

Luckily the double bed could be separated into two. Once finally in bed at 4.30am I cried quietly out of frustration. Although exhausted I did not sleep as I felt scared (the man was very nice but I was sleeping with a stranger in a small room). The morning was awkward and uncomfortable. There was a wake up call at 8am. I left the room in a rush as I did not want to have any more time with a stranger I did not know in such a confined space. I got changed in the bathroom and ended up accidentally leaving some things in the room.

Air Canada has sent a man and a woman, who didn’t know each other, to a hotel to share a room.

Here’s American Airlines making three passengers sleep in the same room, they weren’t strangers but one had to sleep on the floor. A Chinese airline once made passengers stay in an S&M-themed hotel.

The quality of hotels airlines will pay for is often appalling. 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.

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?

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. I’ve always had great luck with airline hotel rooms – most of the time they’re in the same hotel that the flight crew is assigned to (they have an existing contract with the hotel / hotel chain).

    I guess I’ve been lucky.

  2. Nobody can be forced to sleep with a stranger.

    This is just what the spouse tells their spouse happened when caught in the act.

    I laugh when people say they were forced to sleep on the airport floor. Their ‘force’ was their cheapness. Money will fix sleeping on the floor in most cases and always when safety is involved.

    These headlines do nothing to help quell travel fears.

  3. I agree with the others who say you can’t be “forced” to do anything. Also, if I was the man in this scenario, I would insist on sleeping in the lobby (or somewhere else). I would not “force” a woman to whom I am a stranger to sleep in the same room with me, let alone the same bed.

  4. American Airlines put us up in the worst hotel I’ve ever seen in my life–and 30 min away from O’Hare. I think we were the only people there who weren’t doing drug deals or with a very inexpensive prostitute. Never ever flying American again.

  5. How ridiculous. Sleep where you want. Use hotel points if you have them or pay with a credit card if you don’t Life is too short to beg an airline for a dirty worn out bargain basement hotel room.

  6. I’ve also had the experience that the hotel the airline offered was 45 minutes away and I only did that once in my early road warrior days. Now I get my own room close to the airport. I wouldn’t share a room with anyone I did not know, male or female.

  7. I’d use Priceline or Hotwire before I would agree to share a room with a stranger. But again when you fly an ULCC you’re flying a garbage airline so expect to be treated as garbage. With AA hotels tend to be all over the map. Sometimes nice (4 or 4.5 star), sometimes more like a Fairfield Inn, which would suffice for a night. I do know if you have an Admirals Club membership and you’re entitled to a hotel go to the club (assuming they’re open) and have them book you a hotel. They will give you a listing of what they have available. Now the real joke is the $12 food voucher. That needs to be increased substantially.

  8. Hey @Gary ! As you know, I’m not a big fan of commenters ranting at you given that you’re kindly providing a free Travel Blog which we all enjoy reading. So, this is not a rant, but candidly, your title (“Woman Forced To Share Bed With Stranger After Flight Delay—How To Avoid This Airline’s Shocking Blunder”) is a bit over the top this time… Reason 1 as several commenters have already pointed out is that nobody is forced to accept an offer for lodging on the airline’s terms. Reason 2 is that in your article you point out that “Luckily the double bed could be separated into two”, so the woman did not actually share a bed but shared a room. Bottom line, this was a bit click-baity, but your concluding suggestions made it a helpful read !

  9. Texas lacks reasoning skills

    Reason 1 as several commenters have already pointed out is that nobody is forced to accept an offer for lodging on the airline’s terms.

    Semantics, doofus. If the airline is providing either shared lodging or no lodging, then for all practical purposes, you’re being forced to share a room. You are under duress from the flight delay.

    Reason 2 is that in your article you point out that “Luckily the double bed could be separated into two”, so the woman did not actually share a bed but shared a room.

    Sharing a freaking hotel room with a stranger is really bad. It would be bad even if the room was actually a suite with 2 separate king beds in separate rooms. In a flight delay each ticketed traveler should get their own room key.

  10. the public need to know which airlines are doing this so they can be avoided. I also, from personal experience, know that US carriers, (a big full service carrier), are substituting weather reasons for a cancellation as opposed to the real reason which was a “maintenance no go” reason. Solely for the reason of not having to supply a room

  11. Relying on the credit card coverage becomes difficult if you frequently have to make ticket changes and end up with flight credits you have to use. Unless the credit card companies are willing to accept documentation that shows previous tickets converted to flight credits… I make bookings as soon as I know a trip might happen, but things can change, so I am frequenly making bookings using flight credits. My airlines default to paying with existing flight credits and don’t make it easy to say, partially pay with a flight credit and the rest with credit card unless the flight credit is small. And generally it’s better to burn up the flight credit when you can.

    Do you have any workarounds for extending credit card protection for such bookings?

  12. I have not had a bad experience with being given a hotel room by the airline due to an IRROPs, but I am also well aware that I am almost always in first/business and have some status with the airline, and they give much better hotel rooms to those in that category.

  13. This is a great premise for a Hallmark holiday movie: this Christmas, Lacey Chabert stars in “The AAccidental Roommate”

  14. If it gets so bad you have to share a room with a stranger, then that means there are no hotels left that are contracted with the carrier. You have to get your own room at that point.

  15. And now for the rest of the story…

    Having worked for a decade at a Hilton branded focused service property a mile from an airport that has annual low seven figure passenger traffic, I can tell you that asking for a distressed passenger rate for the most part is going to get you a lot of blank stares. Most hotels do not offer that and haven’t for many, many years. The same as hotels are not going to extend the same lowball ADR killing rates they negotiate for crews regardless of the situation.

    A lot of the time these situations occur because the carriers do NOT contract with hotels past what they do for their crews and then when the shit hits the fan, they start disaster calling to see who will give them the most number of rooms at the lowest possible price regardless of how much of a dump that hotel is.

    Many times I would have rep. X from US Air, American, Delta, United, etc. call and ask if we would give them whatever we had left in our inventory at a price that was around 1/2 of what we were charging and shuttle everyone to/from the airport immediately in “a timely manner”, guarantee everyone gets breakfast, would be at the airport a minimum of two hours prior to whenever their departing/rescheduled flight was and if we didn’t agree to those terms, they would call somewhere else.

    OK. Buh-bye.

    Also on the backend, airlines are also notorious for being deadbeats when it comes to paying their bills for crew rooms or for these emergency situations and after getting burned enough times, a lot of hotels won’t even think about taking the business.

  16. I think airlines have entered the End Times. I unfortunately have to fly for work internationally several times a year and have found the only way to survive with some sanity left is to plan for the airlines to drop the ball and have multiple contingencies booked. Alternative flights. Hotels booked if weather is iffy, especially at a connection. And leaving an insane amount of extra time in my plans to compensate for their incompetence.

    I hate it. It’s expensive and requires a support team at work to make it work. But I cannot leave myself at the mercy of the airline when I must travel.

  17. JD Vance approved. No need to let her become a childless cat lady. Expect to see more of this in Trump’s America.

  18. Being seated next to a stranger on an airplane could be worse in some cases, such as those that have made molestation headlines. Strictly speaking she wasn’t forced to sleep on the bed. She was probably also upset that the man didn’t take his luggage to the lobby and sleep there so she had the room and bathroom to herself (she argued for a room for herself.) At a point, you just have to give up and sleep if that is what you want to do. I have slept in long distance busses with strangers next to me. I have slept on airport floors. I have even slept on a cot in a room with a guy stranger on another cot. I have slept in the wilderness, mostly in a tent but a few times in the open and also in Mexico. To tell the truth, I have always been more worried about my luggage being stolen although sleeping in a campground is somewhat worrying. I have slept in my car for a month while working and between rented housing, to save up some money. That was very interesting. I doubt she will get compensation. She would have a better case if she spent her own money on a room after being denied a room for herself. I wonder if the guy would get the room as a single in that case.

  19. This is where you hotel loyalty comes into play and being smart on your budget for traveling. As soon as know the flight os cancel for evening with no other options, im on my Hilton or Marriott app arranging a room and shuttle pick up before the crowd goes into panic . Even Holiday Inn and other hotel groups offer rewards programs. It doesnt always pay to be cheap on every trip and have no loyalty to brand when you sre in a pinch.

  20. I had top tier status with Alaska (Gold 75K at the time) and we had a late cancelled flight from SEA to ANC. AS put us up at the Come Fart In Seattle, I believe. The first 2 keys I was given opened occupied rooms, with sleepers who did not appreciate a stranger opening their door. I’m glad I wasn’t shot or stabbed. The 3rd key was the charm. I slept like a baby, took a shower in the morning and flew on to ANC. Since then, I fly on AS with a sleeping bag and Nemo inflatable air sleeping pad. I have slept on the floor thus at FAI, ANC, SEA, DFW, ORD, MSP, and other airports during IRROPS because there are usually zero hotels available with shuttles during widespread IRROPS.

  21. I have seen KLM forcing a newly married girl, who spoke no English, to share a room with a man, who upon entering the room, promptly opened a bottle of rum. And they gave him her passport too!!
    We saw her crying and accommodated her in my MILs room. Klm just didn’t listen or react.

  22. @gary I’ve read your blog daily for years and have never made a negative comment before but felt this deserved a response. Really disappointed in your lack of awareness in this write up. You are smarter than this.

  23. In today’s age men and women are supposed to be equal, especially in enlightened Europe. The rest of the world, not as much and in some countries, definitely not. This woman may have been playing a game. There were three women and one man not paired off. She should have tried to pair off immediately with one of the other women. Why not? Maybe she was holding out for a room only for herself. In her post, she projects onto the man an image of a possible molester. That is unfair. Only a tiny percentage of men are that way. This guy was good by her description. Yet she lets her fears rule her. Everybody has to work on their personal fears if they want to be equal.

  24. Only flew EasyJet once. Nothing was Easy. Never again (a promise to myself I have kept for 11 years). Incompetent and Racist.

  25. I’m not sure that Reddit is a great news source. That being said, I wouldn’t put it past an airline or a hotel to try to say that there are no more rooms and people have to share.

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