I was on a flight that divertted to PHL instead of the intended city due to weather. When the PHL arrival gate agent opened the door, he/she made an announcement that all pax had been rebooked for the next mroning, and that they should go to baggage claim and try to find a hotel. The agent also said that he/she would not be able to talk to each pax individually about their circumstances because agents were very busy, and they were expecting numerous other divertted aircraft to hit PHL any minute.

I ended up leaving the arrival gate area, and I somehow found a lone supervisor working a totally different gate/area to write me a hotel voucher and he/she even included dinner/breakfast though I did not specifically ask them for food money but it was nice of them. I had asked for the Marriott but they said US has no contract with the Marriott but the hotel I got was similar but just you had to take a shuttle to get to it. I think US paid about $70 for the room which seems to be some kind of standard airline rate, e.g. $70-$100. Hotels seem to provide airlines using vouchers with lower rates than they hand out to distressed pax who will be buying the rooms on their own.

People have reported all sorts of PHL horror stories, and knock of wood, I have not yet had a terrible experience there myself yet. But certainly if I had followed like a sheep to baggage claim and not proactively tried to get them to help me, I might have gotten stuck paying some high rate for my own lodging that night. I think getting out of the chaos, and getting away from the crowd of people are generally sound strategies in iregular operations.