Eu law has changed since last year LGS/compton, now you are entitled to a hotel room/meals/transport to be provided by an airline until a seat becomes available. In exceptional cases of mass disruption when organising a huge number of hotel rooms is near impossible, passengers are entitled to get a refund of hotel bills of a reasonable nature to be paid.
In answer to your questions about claiming hotel bills from airlines then YES I have first hand experience on both sides of the fence.......
Yes all passengers disrupted over the last with EZY were given hotac or given the option of organising their own and claiming back.
The only thing that is not claimable is specific flight compensation for a delay of over 3 hours or for a cancellation as the reason was weather which is outside of airline control/act of nature or god.