Do You Get A Free Hotel With A Weather Cancellation?
Intro
Cancellations across airlines happen all the time, unfortunately. When these cancellations happen, they can be for a variety of reasons ranging from crew shortage, mechanical issues, ATC, or, worse for customers, weather cancellations.
Ordinarily, if the delay is categorized as something that the airline has control over, such as crew shortage or mechanical, passengers will be offered overnight accommodation and meal vouchers. However, if your delay is categorized as weather, you are basically sh*t out of luck.
Try Your Luck
A couple of days ago, I was flying on a connecting ticket from Nadi-Brisbane-Sydney-Los Angeles and had my Brisbane-Sydney route canceled. Fortunately, I was re-booked on the flight the next day over to Sydney, but this meant I had a night in Brisbane. With accommodation prices around 150 USD per night, I enquired if they might be able to comp me a free hotel night.
To my surprise, Virgin Australia went ahead and comped me a free night at a four-star hotel in Brisbane. Apparently, Virgin Australia has a policy that if you are flying on a connecting ticket and the second one is canceled for whatever reason (including weather), the airline will offer you a free night in a hotel.
The moral of the story: it doesn't hurt to ask. If you happen to find yourself stranded on vacation due to weather, ask the airline politely if they would offer a free hotel stay! Most likely, the answer will be no, and then you use your credit card travel insurance, but if you don't ask, you never know what the answer will be!
Final Thoughts
Most airlines have the policy that if a flight is canceled for weather reasons, they will not offer you a free hotel. However, I recently found out that Virgin Australia offers hotels if you are connecting passenger. Moral of the story: even if you think the answer is no, it doesn't hurt to ask.
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