[AirlinesMustPay]

Working mom,

If you can calm down a bit, there may be a way to get something out of your unused tickets. You need to accept first of all that the airline is entitled to charge a fee for date changes. In fact you accept that with Southwest. It is just the amount of the fee you are querying.

You appear to have approached the problem by phone calls and by visits to the airline counter. In my own experience, neither of these usually work unless your case is clear cut in your favour. These people (even the supervisor behind the counter) usually do not have the authority to override airline policies.

Airlines like you to file a complaint on their website, where if the agent reading it does not have to authority to assist, she can pass it up to someone else. But I find that writing a letter to someone in authority produces the best results. That could be the head of the consumer relations department or even the President who would pass it to where it should go.

Since you are the one who wanted the date change, you are on shaky ground and need to appeal to his compassion for this soccer team. Explain to him what happened, and it should not be too difficult to get proof of the weather in Houston that caused the cancellation of the match, and set out your case which is that the airline often relies on weather to justify cancellations and likewise, you are asking him to allow an exception to the airlines policies in this case because:
(1) You the passenger had to change plans due to an act of God, in very much the same way that airlines sometimes do
(2) You informed the airline at the earliest opportunity that you would not be able to travel and gave them the reason
(3) This is a team travelling to a match, not someone on business or even travelling for leisure
(4) Businesses and some airlines sometimes spend money to support sporting activities for the goodwill it will buy them. Here is his chance to bend a little to buy the goodwill of this team.
(5) You chose Continental over his competitor SW. So since SW just charged $50, ask for a travel voucher in return for the unused tickets after perhaps deducting $50.