"that short, contaminated runway with RVR550 OVC002 has lots of nice empty hotel rooms nearby, Captain"
Quite. A colleague of mine once nearly came a cropper because of that.
Operating Perth - Auckland, we carried Island Reserve, not a designated alternate, but due to the AKL - slightly - dodgy forecast he demanded extra fuel to make Sydney, not popular but he did it anyway.
At ToD AKL it was very foggy, and not expected to clear anytime soon, so gleefully diverted to SYD, with an " I told you so" expression.
Shortly afterwards the Company rep. asked why he was going to SYD with a load of pax. travelling to New Zealand when Christchurch was wide open and clearly within range. So.... he turned back - I know, I know, but he did.
Arriving at CHCH. it proved to be even more foggy than AKL, so with AKL having a better ILS, and facilities ( in those days at least ) and a 'possibility' of a midday clearance, he went back to AKL, held until fuel was a consideration, and eventually cobbled up the auto-land and never did see the ground until they automatically landed on it.
He had a well known, voluble, Flt. Engineer. He said "Dave" was very quiet on that approach !
I think he was exonerated on the grounds of incorrect Met. information, dunno, long time ago now, but knowing NZ, quite likely !