Originally Posted by
jpatokal
Why? Most old-school international airlines, and Air China qualifies, do provide STPC. However, a casual search of the website only pulls up this page about free transit hotels in Beijing, so you might need to call them up and ask about Shanghai:
http://www.airchina.co.uk/en/STPC.html
Even for PEK though, the conditions do say that the stop must be "overnight", so an 11-hour layover may be pushing it.
Yeah, they provide overnight accommodations for true overnight layovers, but these aren't so common on the new schedules. Furthermore, I wouldn't trust them to lodge me anywhere remotely acceptable (e.g. Shanghai Airlines Hotel is not cool); this is one of those cases when $50 out of pocket (to crash somewhere decent) is a worth while insurance policy.