I had an interesting experience yesterday...my flight into IAH was delayed and it looked like I would miss my connection at IAH and had to overnight there.

The agents looked on the system and the reason for the delay was not clear.

One agent said "it is just late" and we will not do anything for you. When I pushed him to give a reason, he could not provide one but insisted that they will not do anything.

The gate agent said "the reason is not clear so we will take care of you". She put in the PNR notation to provide me hotel at IAH. She even gave out meal vouchers at the gate to all the passengers without asking.

I ended up making my connection. Still, what is the ruie?

As far as the reason for the delay, the pilot said the ERJ145 was late from EWR-MCI then MCI-IAH. When I looked on the web later that evening, it said Maintenance.