Originally Posted by WhIteSidE

Entirely agreed. I'm a pretty seasoned traveler (at this point pushing 500k miles per year), and I have the great good fortune that dropping nearly 500 pound on an unexpected overnight (dinner, drinks, hotel, taxis, etc), is not financially ruinous for me. For a lot of people, that's not always easy. When I was first getting into traveling a lot and younger (and tight in my budget), I got stuck in Shanghai one time due to a cancellation. Had I not had a local friend I would have probably ended up spending the night on a bench at the airport.

As for the young and old travelers, the generosity of the British (and other assorted) public still exists and they were sorted out by fellow travelers.

As for my connecting flights, AA eventually took care of them for me. I know that in AA is the core of a giant soulless corporation, but at least in my recent experience, they've been doing a very good job with customer service.

I decided not to respond to this thread for a couple of days, least I say something ill advised. I will say that while BA still have some excellent inflight staff, and some excellent ground staff, their customer service experience on this trip has really put me off of flying them.

Also, more centrally to me, as an AA EXP, should I ask for some other compensation for this? Will they award miles / vouchers? Or should I just ask for EU261 and count myself lucky if I get it?