These are not "observations" but more like an irrops diary with a prologue.
Originally Posted by
HighFlyinChar
OP got $200 voucher...that's more than a hotel in Vegas on a Monday night. Book the hotel and sell the voucher on eBay if it's that big of an issue and move along.
If the carrier provided $200 + hotels + meals for every displaced passenger for a system-wide national grounding coming out of a pandemic, they'd be screwed.
Agreed. I'd take the $200 voucher any day over the crap hotels that airlines issue vouchers for. Usually there is a long line to checkin at these places (not great anytime but definitely not at 1am) and the hotels are rarely full service (i.e. you might prefer a strip resort with 24/7 room service). Plus if you use the right credit card you can make a claim for the expenses due to delay. A much better solution than meal/hotel vouchers and does not put you at mercy of airline.
As for the 6am replacement flight I have usually found that airlines (and specifically WN) will accommodate a request for a later flight if space is available. You just have to ask nicely.
Kind of surprising that a 1MM miler is not familiar with these solutions. And UA does not provide these benefits to kettles unless they ask. In fact I often found they did not provide decent trip delay benefits to me unless I was 1K.