A good friend ended up working a job in LA (new client and new city) with his team. He pulled his team out of the so called "hotel" on health and safety reasons and rebooked elsewhere. The "hotel" ended up being a rent by the hour place with all that implies.

When his reimbursement was denied because of the change (cost was doubled - apparently to a local equivalent to Motel 8- so we aren't talking about the Ritz), he challenged it through the H&S side rather than the travel side. The H&S director basically flipped and got the reimbursement pushed through and the travel policy modified to explicitly allow for exceptions in these situations. The conditions were so bad that the director said he'd have to (no choice) take the issue to the board as a H&S breach unless the travel policy was modified and the expense paid for.

Their normal travel policies were pretty good - but new locations tended to devolve into fiascos the first few times unless new clients basically told them to book in particular (generally decent) hotels.