Pays to check your reservations for any flight changes

Carol, you are soo right. And unfortunately these kind of problems seems to be normal nowadays. You did the right decision, booking a through flight on only one ticket. But so many tourists who are not so knowledgable book via a third provider and get a flight with "self connection". And then they are astonished if the first flight has been changed and they cannot change the second flight.

Carol, good for you for following up on the change. Also for being prepared for your call. What a hassle the change could have been otherwise.

This is an example of why we always book directly with the airline. If Murphy's Law ever comes up, and it will, there is nothing better than being able to deal directly with the airline. Same with hotels.

The prevalence of the many, many, booking sites for just about everything is just another example of technology using us rather than us using using technology. Many of my younger relatives cannot believe I traveled extensively in Europe before computers, cell phones, mapping apps, and booking sites even existed. And still do to a very great extent.

Oh, for the days when traveling was much simpler and a whole lot more fun.

Also one of many reasons I book directly. Do check your reservations often and yes it would be reasonable to expect the airlines to inform you when there are changes, but they don't. Last year, in the two months after I purchased a ticket, there were 6 changes to departure and arrival times as well as a flight number.

Thanks for the warning - I find it extraordinary the aitline didn't alert you, and didn't automatically reschedule you whether a connection. Lucky you checked.

I normally fly Singapore Airlines, and they always send an email and a text message for any flight changes, even minor 5-10 minute ones, including a link to accept or reject their proposed new flights. If you don't accept, they will contact you with alternative options.

Excellent work being proactive! I check my Delta flights on Sunday Mornings as Saturdays are often the time when they do big changes.

And yes to having a plan B in your pocket when you call!

"The prevalence of the many, many, booking sites for just about everything is just another example of technology using us rather than us using using technology."

Uh, no, because money.

The "many, many, booking sites" use tricks to get tickets at lower prices. And some of that they pass on, or promise to.

People need that lower price or are being "frugal", so there you go.

And then too many times it blows up on them.

A good reminder.
I check booked flights every week or so after booking them.
Then, about two weeks before the trip I check every couple of days, then every day about five days before flying.
I once had flights changed giving me 20 minutes to change planes in Frankfurt.
The agent on the phone, in another country altogether, couldn’t understand why I wasn’t happy.
My default now is to say. “Please get me your supervisor…I’m retired, I can hang on here all day till we get this fixed.”
Away to check my next flights now……

I do periodically check my reservations once made and have found changes not alerted to in the past which is why I check. Funny I checked this morning after my daily read of the forum when someone mentioned how Saturdays is a day they may be adjusting schedules (Pam, Carol).
The part that gets me including not ALERTING me is like this one, the flight change made it so I couldn't make the connecting flight.

I always book directly through the airline and try to avoid all codeshares, so it involves that airlines flights so lame that happens. Same happened last year on BA.
I like the SJ idea to check daily the week before.

"... originally leaving San Diego at 8:40 AM ... The change had me
leaving San Diego at 5:45 PM ... "

I'm very surprised that you didn't get a notification from Delta about this schedule change as it's more than 9 hours; which will entitle you to cancel and get full refund if you choose to. So far I got two notifications from Delta for my flights in the Spring and both changes are less than 20 minutes.

Carol, I love Delta but they have a bad habit of sometimes not alerting passengers to flight changes. You find the change if you go onto the app or the website, but if you don't ... too bad, so sad. Pam has a good idea about checking every Sunday. It becomes a habit then, and I think that would work well.

Of course, there are times when they send you a notice of a flight change that is non-existent. That happened to me recently and it was driving me crazy trying to figure out what had changed. It turned out nothing had so I think it was a glitch. But it's still annoying.

That said, I'm glad you caught it and that everything worked out.

I just had an example of this! When I went into to check my flight reservations, there was a notice of "schedule change". So I started studying it to find out what the change was. Time was the same, seats were the same, plane type was the same. I finally noticed that the departure flight from LHR had changed from Terminal 2 to Terminal 3. I had pre-booked the lounge in T2 so I had to cancel that and book in T3. Thankful that I learned to check my reservations regularly.