Another nightmare is trying to use an Apple TV with a captive portal. I travel with my Apple TV so I don't have to enter my Netflix or whatever credentials int

Another nightmare is trying to use an Apple TV with a captive portal. I travel with my Apple TV so I don't have to enter my Netflix or whatever credentials into someone else's TV. Also, Apple TV has a much nicer UI than most smart TVs. However, no Apple TV model has a browser, so there's no way to directly log into a captive portal such as those used in a hotel. My workaround is to set the MAC on my travel router to be the same as the Apple TV, then log in to the hotel's captive portal through the travel router. Once that's done, the hotel will remember that MAC address (the Apple TV's wifi address) and the Apple TV will not need any further authentication. The travel router I use is a TP-Link TL-WR902AC. It has a horrible UI, but if you persist, it can be made to do a lot of unusual things you might need for travel or conferences. And to address the problem you're having: At least once or twice when I couldn't connect to a captive portal using my Debian laptop, I was able to connect through the travel router (though I never figured out what the specific problem was).