MilesBuzz! - Any secret to getting hotel points when staying due to airline irrops?

If I end up stranded overnight due to an airline cancellation/misconnection/etc. where the airline is offering compensation for an overnight stay, is there a way to ensure or at least enhance my chances of getting the hotel stay at one whose loyalty program I participate in, and getting points and/or status credit for the stay?

I suspect the answers to this vary by airline and perhaps by hotel chain as well, but while I'm interest to know of any airline/hotel combination that would allow this to work, my specific interest is in situations involving Delta and Starwood (or Priority Club or Marriott).

In every situation I've encountered in the past, the airline has either booked the reservation and I get no choice of hotel and no points anyway, or they offer a voucher good for a rate that doesn't qualify for points, and it's again at a hotel of their choosing. In some cases I'd be willing to trade the airline's offer for cash or even a cash voucher for future travel on the airline, valued at less than their cost for their standard offer, so I could apply that value toward a decent rate at a nearby Starwood hotel. That is, say Delta is offering a free night at the Hampton, and they're paying maybe a $90 pre-negotiated rate. I might be willing to trade that for $75 cash or even a $75 Delta Dollars voucher if I could find a $120 rate at a Sheraton with shuttle service.

The airline would come out ahead in that case, not just because of the $15 savings, but because there'd be one more passenger they wouldn't have to send to the Motel 6 because they'd already filled up the Hampton. But I don't know how to get past the "sorry, the computer won't let me do that" issue.

Related to this, if I simply ignored the airline's offer and booked a room independently, is there a good way to get the airline to vouch for me with my chosen hotel to justify a discounted "stranded flyer" rate?

Anyone with experience or ideas about how to make such a situation work to my advantage?

A few years ago I volunteered for a bump in Baltimore and, since it was the last flight of the night AA put me up in the nearby Embassy Suites as well as giving me a voucher. At the hotel, they took my credit card information along with the airline's hotel voucher, in case I ran up any additional charges. So I bought a drink at the bar and charged it to my room. Got a stay credit, the Hilton points and 500 extra AAdvantage miles.

. . . So I bought a drink at the bar and charged it to my room. Got a stay credit, the Hilton points and 500 extra AAdvantage miles.

I do the same thing, and it sometimes works. Always worth a try.

As to getting into a hotel of your chain-of-choice, if you have some status with the airline, or can strike up a conversation with the ground agent who's handling the stranded travelers, you can sometimes succeed. Usually the airline has arrangements with more than one hotel property near the airport and has some discretion on which one to use. Doesn't always work, though.

I don't know how you could just get a "credit" you could use anywhere. The "sorry, the computer won't let me do that" response seems a truthful one, and difficult for the ground agent to get around.

I recently had to spend the night at DFW becuase of mechanical problems. AA put me up at the Westin. When I got to the hotel, I gave them the voucher, credit card and my SPG #. In my account I got some points and the stay posted. The points may just reflect incidentals (hard to tell since I don't know what AA pays Westin) but at least the stay counts.

Good to know about getting stay credits with purchase of incidentals. For me the stay credit is usually more important than points for the nightly rate.