Is this really that common? First time that it has happened to me, although admittedly I haven't typically booked that far in advance (though 2.5 months is arguably not that far in advance...), and I fly longhaul maybe 4-5 times a year so I may have just been lucky previously

I would have thought this would be more prominent for regional flights where it is easy for them to shift people to another flight one or two hours later. But cancelling to rebook on five to seven hours difference flight I would have thought would be less frequent