When a flight is cancelled for weather, the airline owes you a seat on another flight and nothing else.

No hotel.

No meal voucher.

Nothing.

It is not cruelty and it is not a loophole — it is the published policy of essentially every carrier in this country, and it is entirely lawful, and it applies identically to a business traveller with a corporate card and a woman with two five-year-olds and everything she owns in one bag.

Mechanical is different.

Mechanical is the airline’s fault and they put you in a hotel.