Traveler and ExpgoodAgent:
As mentioned, when I called to make changes I had no net access/ could not go to your site. And I should also say that while now I sound bitter (ok "am"), then I was not. Yes, teary-voiced and slow with the brainfog of stress, but polite. Traveler- you made assumptions about following rules, but you've run off rather than asking me. I did read the rules, albeit without memorizing them. (reading far more than most people- I read licences at web sites. I cross out sentences in paper contracts. Long ago I rolled a "lawful good/neutral" (a gneutral?) in the game of life.)

Its just that death and dying put people on an orthogonal set of rules. My grandmother went from 'same as she always was for the past 7+ years' to dead within one week. If we'd had any idea of what would happen of course we'd have gone with fully flexible SouthWest tix or similar. And as non-rich people we're glad that companies like Expedia exist so we can fly 1/10th around the world for centicents per mile.

But the Expedia agents could have immediately said "We really cannot change this. No one you talk to can change this." They didn't. By blaming AC they created delay as I went back and forth between Expedia's and AC's agents. In the end it *was* Expedia's rules, not AC's, and I wish Expedia had just said so.

And of course Expedia's agents don't have any special obligations to a caller whose emergency is unrelated to air travel itself. Perhaps they have stricter penalties for calls that go beyond whatever time limits the call-center imposes. But the sympathetic creativity shown by other companies' agents made for much faster phone calls. Their "here are some suggestions, and let me bring another experienced agent into this call, she also might have ideas" and "we don't have anything for her, but you can call Competitor at this #" helped. Much more help than the answers and transfers around the call center I got at Expedia. (And is it the case that "supervisor" transfers often aren't to an actual supervisor with additional authority? Is that comment inaccurate?)