Continuing to post seems a little pedantic since the stars aligned to get us here, and someone at Southwest proactively offset the 'cost' of all my time on hold and frustrating, but since these delays are par for the course these days... I think it's worth accurately discussing what options are available to travelers when things go sideways.

Obviously, when you're actually at the airport, the sky's the limit - I've had agents let me change my destination entirely, no extra charge. Many, many overnights closer to my destination - at least once after I had to make use of the flat tire rule. If you're at the airport and polite, they're very likely to do anything reasonable you suggest.

This is different. We can't make it back to Miami during rush hour if we have to go to FLL first - and it's a silly expectation when the delay is known many hours in advance. I'm certain that *someone* was empowered to switch us remotely, but when hold times are multiple hours and the overwhelmed staff isn't in the mood to be particularly accommodating... I'd just very much like to know exactly how we're supposed to proceed in the future. The vast majority of our trips are long weekends, and if we can't expect to switch between FLL and MIA in future IRROPs (no way do I believe this shouldn't qualify) then we need to know. If we can, we need to know *how* to accomplish that.