“They Said It Was Free—It Was Full of Cockroaches”: Why Taking The Airline’s Hotel After A Canceled Flight Is A Huge Mistake – View from the Wing

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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

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?

  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.

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