http://traveltips.usatoday.com/flig...eler-15666.html

Meals and Hotels

According to gonomad.com, U.S. airlines that cancel your flights aren’t required to provide you with a hotel room, meal vouchers or even free phone calls, although many have policies in place to work with customers. If you find you’ll be stranded overnight due to an airline cancellation, ask a customer service representative for meal vouches or hotel vouchers; often, you’ll find they’ll make an effort to help. The U.S. Department of Transportation says many airlines, especially low-cost airlines, don’t tend to provide amenities to stranded passengers, but asking is always worthwhile.



In Europe

Unlike the United States, the European Union (EU) has mandates in place for airline cancellations. When an airline cancels a flight for reasons other than weather, passengers have the right to financial compensation, as fixed by current EU law, unless the airline cancels the flight with more than two weeks' notice or passengers are rerouted and are able to arrive very close to their originally scheduled arrival time. Passengers are also required, by law, to receive meals, a hotel stay when the cancellation results in an overnight layover and a full reimbursement when the cancellation delays the passenger for five hours or more.