Redhead

MIA at least once. Just curled up in a corner

danielonn

Two years ago coming in from TLV back to SFO Lufthansa had a 3 PM flight with an overnight at FRA. I forked over $90+$12 for Breakfast to stay at the Mercure Airport Hotel. It was the best money that I spent as I went up to my room with just my backpack since my suitcase was checked all the way to SFO. I took a nice swim in the pool followed by a nice warm bath and fell asleep. The next morning I awoke to a full breakfast and was well-rested to continue my journey. Had I spent the night at FRA I would be subjected to noise and the smell of smoke. Sometimes if one is too frugal they will feel jetlagged for days and won't feel well on the plane.

As a result of staying overnight in a hotel it made for a good nights sleep. I went to sleep at 10:00 and woke up at 5:00 and took the 6:15 AM shuttle for the 9:20 AM flight.

Kiwi Flyer

danielonn - a lot of cases where people sleep at airport is where they either arrive ridiculously late, leave ridiculously early, or both.

If I have a transit between 2am and 5am for instance I certainly will not pay for a hotel room.

Tiki

I've slept in AKL, BKK and SIN a few times while transitting elsewhere. Also PPT if the plane arrives in the wee hours of the morning, it isn't worth the high cost of a hotel for just a few hours and they will usually let you check in around 8am the next morning if you ask nicely and there are rooms free.

PSUhorty

... as I will be doing in May. Arrive into BKK @ 11:15PM and catch my connecting flight to CNK the following morning at 9AM. Not getting a room.

Edit to add: ... at least that's my stance right now. If anyone believes I'd be better served to find a room instead, I'm all ears- let me know of any suggestions near to the airport.

producerkoof

Last year I was flying SFO-JFK to visit friends. The redeye was about 6 hours delayed so most of the passengers just curled up on the floor in SFO and went to sleep. We all woke up around 4:30am when the flight arrived from JFK. We boarded and off we went to New York. Not too bad, between the announcements and all the snoring.

WillTravel

Presumably you have a long flight to get into BKK. Do you have some sort of option to take a shower? That, and the option to lounge around afterwards, would be sufficient enough for me to want a room for a few hours.

dd992emo

I've spent the night at a lot of MAC terminals including Travis AFB, Yokota AFB, Alameda NAS and Clark AFB. None were very comfortable, but if you were headed back to the States it made it more palatable. Going the other way, not so much...

BuildingMyBento

Sure, MFM, stuck there for seventeen hours. At least... there was nothing good about that. HKG, found a quiet stall in an infrequently-trafficked part of the terminal. KUL, I chatted with a woman at the info. desk for a long time, and just walked, then ended up at the LCC terminal using the overly ambitious wifi in the cafeteria. Pretty sure I'm missing one-ah yes, IST, this year. At least I was begrudgingly permitted into the wi-fi porting domestic lounge until 1AM, and there's a none-too-obvious supermarket on one of the lower floors (maybe where the metro entrance is?) of the international building. Eh, as long as there's a pleasant lass to speak with, a working power point and seamless ways to frequently egress for some air, that'd be swell enough.

goalie

Spent the night at IAD (UA) thanks to a wave of thunderstorms which came thru and caused me and 1,500 of my newest friends to misconx where even as a 1k, UA couldn't get me a hotel as they were all booked due to toehr misconx pax (and kudos to UA ^ as they brought out a ton of blankets and pillows for those of us that decided to stay airside )

Flyerquacker

Once I flew Newark - Chicago - Heathrow - Singapore. I had a 6 or 7 hr layover in Heathrow during which I mostly just sat dazed on a chair, too tired to read yet too nervous to sleep as I was travelling alone and it was the middle of the day.
Another time on a school trip, we overnighted in Bangkok because our flight was delayed by 7 hours. It was amazing: a bunch of teenagers going crazy in a deserted terminal.

CMK10

Once. In 2007 a friend of mine and I were flying back to PHX from LAS. At the time, US Airways had a late night LAS operation which included an 11:59 PM LAS-PHX flight. That night, the flight was first delayed until 1, and then they called for volunteers. We were told they'd put us on a 7 AM flight (in First Class no less) but as it was Spring Break and there was a prize fight that night, there were no hotel rooms.

My friend and I figured that for $200 (and did I mention the $5 meal voucher?) we could sleep at the airport for a few hours. It was actually a lot of fun, we had the run of the place and never had to leave security. The only obnoxious thing was hearing the slot machines go "do do do do...WHEEL! OF! FORTUNE!" every few minutes. Oh and it was really weird falling asleep around 3 with no one around and then opening my eyes at 6 and seeing the concourse full of people.

wrp96

There's a reason I carry a blanket in my carryon - and it's not because I get cold on planes.

Most recent experience was in LIM. Our flight from the states arrived late in the evening, but our onward flight left extremely early. With a group of 20, getting us all herded to a hotel was only going to give us at most 2-3 hours of sleep, so we roughed it on the floor, which was fine except for the cleaning staff using heavy duty equipment to clean the floors. Finally gave up and went and got some coffee instead. Don't remember much of the 5 hour bus ride to our final destination.

3 of us stayed over to go see MP after the group left and on the way back, we had 12 hours between our arrival from Cusco and our flight back to the states. The original plan was to leave luggage in storage and go sightseeing, but one of us was sick (had spent most of her time in Cusco in a clinic) so we found a comfortable seat and just crashed. Probably the most sleep we'd gotten since our arrival in Peru.

SomeGuy

FCO, on a poorly booked flight that went ATH-FCO (overnight)-ATL-LAX. Lots of other sleepers there also. At the time I was skinny and flexible enough that I could fit under the arm rests.

MCO, back when they had tons of RJ flights. I was booked on a 6am MCO-SDF the day after the Daytona 500. It was oversold, so I took the bump, and got rebooked on an 11am MCO-ATL-SDF. Since it was so early, the place was empty, and I was so wiped, I spread out over a few chairs. Got angrily woken up by people looking for seats about 3 hours later.

SEA, on the great DL fat-finger sale of 2006, SYR-SEA for $98 booked in F. On my second back and forth in two days I had to spend the night in SEA because of an earlier delay that caused me to miss my redeye return. At the time I was taking a college class where the class was taped and put onto a DVD for the long distance learners, so I watched lectures all night.

bitburgr

Once in LAS. I had a redeye on US LAS-EWR and it just kept taking delay after delay after delay. Alot of us slept at the terminal until they finally cancelled it and we all had to go back to the ticket counters for rebooking.

I had purposefully scheduled a long connection to give me a chance to walk the strip for the first time. If I had known at 5:00 pm what I knew at midnight (and later) I just would have gotten a room on my own.