I know this is late in coming but it might help someone else.

We were planning a flight from SLC - IAH to see our terminally ill mother. We already held tickets and were called to her side 1.5 weeks earlier than planned. When I was unable to find any relief from high change fees (change fee PLUS the fare difference) to get us there earlier and was unable to get much help from the overseas reps on the phone I found a local Atlanta refunds phone number. I thought we'd just buckle down and make the drive, hoping for a refund due to the illness. There was an 800 number listed also but I decided to call the local number, hoping to speak to someone who could understand my plight and who I could understand. 1-404-715-5417 8am-5pm ET. I explained my situation and that we would just try to drive (I had no motive other than a refund). The rep was very kind and asked me to hold for a second. She came back on the line and asked me when we needed to fly, that she'd make the changes for us. I wasn't yet ready to decide that so they added a note to our confirmation. I thanked her and called the main reservation line later that day. They said, we see the note on your account, I can help you make that change now. So, our original fare was honored and no change fee was made. I had to make our return trip also and was told that any further change to the itinerary would incur the change fees, I was fine with that. We flew just fine, but the day before our return our mother passed away. Now the funeral was to be 3 days after our scheduled return. I called the main res line and fully expected to pay the change fees. I changed our flight with no mention of any change fees and we were not charged anything. This all turned out very well, and all because we held a ticket already. Based on the original note on our itinerary I did not have to provide them with hospital/Dr/Funeral Home info but was certainly ready to do so.

This all worked out very well, I hope it can be of use to someone else and I HOPE THAT NO ONE ABUSES this! They were very kind to us in our time of need and I'd hate for others to lose out on that chance as well. One other person in our family had no ticket in hand and we contemplated buying a cheap ticket out in the future and then calling this number to make the necessary changes but decided against that.