I stopped waiting for distressed traveler hotel arrangements years ago. Oftentimes the rates are higher than what I can find on my own and I would rather be in full control of where I spend the night.
This. Absolutely this!
If half of everyone here is complaining about PDBs, poor food, uncomfortable seating, declining service and lack of customer focus, should we really imagine the cost-restricted desk jockey thinking of these things is working to get us into the airport Grand Hyatt or Hilton? (Rhetorical question - they're trying to come up with more ways of saying "no voucher for you" and finding the cheapest places willing to accept a pittance because people normally avoid these inconvenient duds like a bad case of traveler's diarrhea.)
Airlines often arrange contracts with, shall we say, "needy" or "hungry" hotels that, stupidly, may be distant from the airport and not offer transportation. If one really takes up their offer, request a transportation voucher for a return trip and meal vouchers (but be warned, if the preferred dump has a restaurant, it probably has limited hours).
In my case, if I'm already inconvenienced I have no desire for further B.S. (and ending up in the distant, run down Roach Bates Motel, or as we did once, the dreaded and now rightfully demolished MIA Doubletree Club Dungeon and Sheets) so rather than queuing up with a cast of hundreds mobbing some poor sot with these vouchers, I'm on my phone with the hotel at the airport or of my preferred hotel chain.
I'm requesting a nearby property with shuttle service and a "distressed traveler" rate if that concerns me.
I'm on the shuttle or at my preferred property settling in for the night when half the distressed pax are still in line waiting to see what Dump of the Month Club bed box the airline will favor them with.
If you're on business travel, expense or deduct. If on personal travel, if you didn't buy TCI insurance, in essence and by default you "self-insured". You can always try for airline rembursement later, but frankly it's not much of a hope unless you are a high value traveler (as measured by Helix, not MM status or mid-status via the cheapest deals flights, to be brutally candid here).
It's a lot like drinking my morning juice with these things: they happen, they will eventually happen to me and if I choose to self-insure it's time to suck it up.
