I remember around three years ago we had a flight change on United....we were notified but before I called in to change the dumb connection they gave us I went online and looked for a better option. There was a flight that was much more expensive but I wrote down the flight #'s and gave them to the agent. She had no issue at all with giving us that flight
Yes, I know it was years ago but it still might help to do the research before calling....