expedia.com inhuman, uncompassionate, uncaring, uncooperative, cold and heartless, miserly and selfish, Internet

My mom purchased a ticket on January 1st, 2011 to fly from Miami, to Mexico on January 16th, 2011 departing at 7am and coming back January 21, 2011. We paid $612 for the ticket at that time.

Yesterday January 14, 2011 my mom received a call that a family member had been in a fatal accident, and that they were going to have the burial at 12pm on January 15, 2010. My mom was heartbroken with the news, and called me to let me know, and wanted to know if i could come and help her make the arrangements for her to be able to be there.

Iwent online to expedia, and found a roundtrip ticket for $433.56 for a flight fromMiami to Mexico from the 15th- 21st.I called expedia to see if we could just change the departure date from the 16th to the 15th andexplained the situation.

During this process I was hung up on, and placed on hold for anywhere from 20- 40 minutes at a time, waiting for a manager

Ispoke to 4 or 5 different managers (which i have names) with no heart. Every single one of them kept telling me that they understood the situation but that they were not able to change the departure date on the ticket. That once a ticket is purchased they are not able to change it. They said that the only ones that could change it was the airline company.

We called the airline company and they stated that they would be more than willing to change the departure date, but that it was a private ticket owned by expedia and that they would be the only one able to change it. They stated that they would be more than happy change it if expedia would do a 3 way conference to give them the authorization.

I called expedia back again, to inform them of what the airline had explained to me and they again stated that there was nothing they could do to change the ticket and refused to do a 3 way conference witht he airline.

They stated that we could cancel the ticket and loose the $612 and purchase another one for the dates needed. From 6pm until 1am I called their customer service number to try to get a hold of someone that would be able to help.

We offered to pay extra for the day difference, offered to bring back a copy of the Death Certificate to no avail. We were told "sorry for your loss, but if you don't want to lose the value of your ticket, the only thing we can suggest is to carry on with the itineray like it was originally set."

I drove down to the airport which is close to 300 miles south of were I live to see if we could change it at the ticket counter. However when we got there we came to find that they would not reopen until 6am.

We were not asking for a refund nor anytype of compensation. We were simply asking for something that was very feasible. We were willing to pay the difference of the adding the day. It was an unforseen event that no one had planned. And we offered to bring proof that there was a death in the family and there was a legitimate reason for the flight to be changed.

At 12:30am when I tried to make the last attempt of reaching someone with the authorization to change this mess. I got a representative who transfered me to a "manager" who got on the phone and told me "i'm sorry but its after hours and we are not able to do anything now, you'll have to call back in the morning". Yet even when I called at 6pm(during business hours)no one was able, or willing to help.

This is not the first time she books flights thru this website. You would think that having a good customer and retaining them would be their number one priority. However it doesnt seem to be the case in this case.