Originally Posted by
televisor
I'm wondering, in these sorts of situations where the whole plane gets rebooked, is it better just to find your own hotel / transport, and then deal with any rebooking issues on the phone? (At least in EU261 situations you should have your costs covered, in addition the delay compensation?)
United FT'ers in this situation have posted it's better to self-help, keep receipts, and submitt to United for reimbursement.
Personally, I am shocked that a biz-class pax has to wait for a hotel accommodation, and then get put into a dump with a random roomie. I'd expect, say, an ME3 airline to pull that kind of mis-treatment on its coach passengers (only).
OP's wife treatment was so bad, in hindsight, an unreimbured decent hotel would have been preferable to a free dump.