Overnighting at DTW
 

I'm a huge airplane nerd and I've never had a chance to fly on a 747 before--so when I saw that Delta was going to be flying one from Detroit to Seattle next month, I jumped on what might be one of my last opportunities--I had the Delta miles available, and I had enough Southwest points to get me to Detroit and then back from Seattle--and I'm in grad school and we don't start until the end of September, so there were no issues with scheduling.

Thing is, my flight to Detroit arrives late the evening before. I'm aware that Southwest is in a different terminal from Delta and there are no airside connections, so I'll need to clear security again. I can't find hours for TSA (does anyone know?), but at any rate it's my understanding that I won't be able to go through until the day of the flight anyway. So my question is, can I just chill overnight in the terminal Southwest is in, then whenever TSA opens at the Delta terminal make my way over there--or will I need to get a hotel for the night (in which case it may be worth it to change my flight to an earlier one just to get my money's worth at the hotel)?

I know there's a Westin connected to the terminals, but their cheapest room was over $200 and I'm trying to keep expenses down here--the chance to fly on a 747 is worth it if absolutely necessary, but I'd rather avoid it if I can.

Have you looked at the Sleeping in Airports site?
http://www.sleepinginairports.net/usa/detroit.htm

The Westin is nice - and the convenience of its own security entrance to Delta's A concourse of the McNamara complex is great, but there certainly are 2* and 3* options not far off airport that have shuttle service and much lower rates.

Southwest crew use the Four Points.

If there's a hotel connected to an airport, that tends to be my first choice, as long as the price isn't terrible. $200 is tolerable for the convenience.

You do know that after this, the next thing would be to hunt the 747-8i.
If you like hunting rare planes, try finding 342 and 345. I'm not sure are there any scheduled operations left.

Consider one of the cheap offsite hotels - Knights Inn runs a 24 hour shuttle and is in the $60/$70 range.

Apparently Azerbaijan Airlines still has two -500s. And given that my research is on religious minorities in the Russian Empire, a trip to Baku might indeed be in my future...

Quality Inn, Clarion, and Knights Inn are all around $55 on Sep 14 with easy free shuttle access to the airport (<2 miles) and 3.4-3.5 tripadvisor ratings. At those rates, I just can't see putting up with trying to sleep in a terminal.

When I'm in this situation at DTW (which is often since I commute to/from there) I always call Knights Inn directly and get a rate under $50. The shuttle is great and the motel is perfectly fine.

Detroit, much like Cleveland, has some of the lowest hotel rates, there's no point sleeping at the airport. Call any of the hotels for free shuttles, help support the economy here, they'll be glad to pick you up.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. If I were flying in on Delta I'd be more inclined to tough it out in the terminal, but since I'm going to have to deal with the TSA hassle again anyway since my arrival is to an airline at a different terminal, I'll just get a hotel for the night.

Anyway, it's a premium ticket so I'll have access to the priority security line, so it shouldn't be that much waiting in line (which is great for an 8:30 flight).

I don't want to burst their bubble, but I hope the OP realizes that DL could always make an equipment change and would owe them nothing but getting them from DTW to SEA & back, 747, 757, etc. - anything they have with wings.

I'm well aware.

It's worth the shot. At any rate, an equipment change seems unlikely--I'm assuming this is the 747 that they'll turn around and send to Tokyo later in the day, and I just checked and it's full enough that they'll need it (I just counted the empty seats, subtract from the capacity it's configured for and it's still roughly 40 more than the capacity of their 777s), so barring mechanical failure I don't know that it's very likely they'll swap it for anything else. I don't deny the possibility, but it seems unlikely.

Westin is pretty cheap on points, if you have SPG points to burn.

On this day Delta is sending a 747 to SEA in the morning and later that same day sending a A330 back to Detroit. Did not look any further but they are obviously making a aircraft switch to one of the SEA flights for scheduling or sending the 747 to Asia for maintenance.