Several months ago, when BA went on a 24 hour strike, I was flying BCN-LHR. When arriving in LHR, the lines were "miles" long for re-booking, lay over hotels, etc. In fact. hotels were now hard to come by.

I bypassed any line, went to my favorite airport hotel where I have some status. Got a room on executive level, and did my re-booking from there.

When I returned home, I sent a claim for the hotel, taxi, meal, drink, etc. and the check from BA came 2 weeks later.