I'm sorry that the OP had this experience, but the rules have been discussed over and over again here. Yes, there is quite a bit of flexibility but you have to understand the rules. Just this morning, a new WN flyer was saying that they "were going to buy tickets as far ahead as possible and use re-faring to get TTFs". I pointed out that you must be careful because of the strict TTF expiration date. You want to strategically use TTFs to minimize the possibility of tainting future tickets.