A Day On Hold Is A Day To Slit Your Wrists

You have to wonder who does the hires for Expedia and these other companies which rely on foreign operatives to handle costumer concerns (perhaps more truthfully, complaints.)  I have spent several days circling Expedia trying to learn more about an arbitrary change of flight plans for a segment of a journey into Canada.  It was complicated by the fact that my itinerary was also set up for one of my daughters, but that another who had decided to join us on this expedition elected to book her flight independently.  It was she who alerted us to the change since AirCanada notified her directly whilst our notification had to go through the cumbersome machinery of  Expedia.  And it was she who was able to point out that in addition to the nine am departure AirCanada improbably selected  (in place of the origiinal 11:00 am departure)for a fifty or so minute trip to Halifax where we would sit in the airport until the Boston flight at 4:15. Intrepid me, however, launched into getting us on the 2:00 PM and this required voice contact with Expedia staff which their company policy is clearly to avoid at all costs.  The first three persons who called me in response to my asking for voice contact were one who, although speaking a kind of English that  I could dimly make out, abruptly turned from her microphone into which she was speaking to me but left the audio surround on, I guess to indicate that we were still in contact, because I could not satisfactorily verify to her my email address nor my telephone number.  She refused to investigate the odd fact that I had emails from Expedia coming in on those addresses that she said did not exist in my account.  The next two operatives could not speak English clearly enough to proceed, then to make the frustration complete, the next was inaudible because of a background hum in the line.  Through all of this I was getting bits and pieces of data which I put together to suggest a scenario in which somehow the Expedia data base had put together for my account my daughter's email address, a botched version of her telephone number, and my husband's telephone number as an alternative. Despite repeated attempts to change my password and the other data for my account--the fact that the itinerary number remained stable seemed to impress none of them--I was getting nowhere until on still another attempt I got a young man in India whose English was proficient enough that he was not defensive and thus willing to explore all possibilities. Forty five minutes of staying on the line with the loudspeaker on so that I was not tied to my phone this young man got us on the two o'clock flight, and I emailed my other daughter who booked herself on it.  It was all because he somehow overlooked the fact that I did not have the qualifying indicators (email address identification, telephone number) and went with the fact that I had the Expedia itinerary number.  Now we are all on the same plane, everything is right, but how am I ever going to be able to make contact with Expedia to get their data base on me correct?  Write them a letter?  I don't think they know about these ancient modes of communication.  I am sure that this nightmare occurred because of various senile inadvertences on my part.  By chance I was talking by phone with a ninety two year old sister earlier in the day.  She is in excellent health but fears and loathes the thought of living on so long.  After my Expedia experience I sort of agree; if the experience of technology must be what it is, then it's time to go.