Think the problem with this is that many of the pax required visas to "land" in Canada so it wouldn't be feasible to overnight them there since Canada wouldn't have it. Sequestering us is tricky since I believe UA got a ton of bad press for having PAX stay in military barracks someplace in Canada.

For me, given all the options - it was the best option to get the chance to sleep in my own bed and try all over again. That said, I know a few people who had time sensitive business/plans and that wasn't the best outcome for them. CX did try their best to get people with connections out either on CX889 or CX899 out of EWR that night/early morning. In the end, it's still about 14.5 hours to HKG from YWG so didn't save much time on the rescheduled CX841D from JFK vs. YWG.

Re: Crowne Plaza - that option was offered to all pax regardless of class. They did encourage you to go home and said they would reimburse cab expenses if you went home (if you were local).

Re: YVR - as someone said, you have to fly to the closest place which probably was YWG. Even still we had to dump so gas to get down to landing weight. Also YVR has all the same immigration problems you'd have overnight-ing pax in Canada. Think overall given that there's already a CX ground crew in place at JFK along with help from BA probably better than YVR since I think only that one flight that connects out of JFK goes through there.