Originally Posted by
stiphy
This seems ridiculous that they can't change the flights for July 4th which is over a week away. I'd take the other posters advice about seeing if the ticket agent at the airport could help you. There is a very big difference between an 11:55am and 7:30am flight (namely sleep and/or what you get to do on your last night of vaca). If there are seats available on the later flight they should be your friends.
OK, let's look a little deeper into what the OP's friends are trying to do. Apparently their original 11:55 departure has been cancelled, and the computer assigned them to the 7:30 flight. The computer often does illogical things like that. But instead of wanting to switch to the 11:30 flight that is still on the schedule, the friends are trying for a late afternoon departure.