Is SLC-LHR being discontinued?
 

I have award travel booked for SLC-LHR this December. My booking still shows kosher. But if I look to book a parallel itinerary, the flight is not in the system.

Any insights here?

Saturday schedule change day. So could be change in aircraft, could be changed in schedule, or could be absolutely nothing. Wait until tomorrow. By then, either your reservation will update or the flight will become re-available.

Looks to me like DL is transitioning this route to less-than-daily operation, and your booked date might no longer operate as a non-stop flight.

Every Saturday is "schedule change Saturday", and as the previous poster advised, wait until tomorrow to see what happens.

Whatever automatically happens to your booking, if your booked non-stop flight is canceled, you have a "golden ticket" where you can choose to cancel or rebook your flight for no fee for any reasonable itinerary you might choose.

For example, if you still wish to travel on a day where your non-stop was canceled, you could propose to a DL phone agent that you'd like to extend your trip by a day because a connecting itinerary might have given you a shorter London visit. Or, if you prefer the non-stops, you could propose to the phone agent adjusting the travel days of your itinerary to maintain non-stop flights in both directions.

Once the schedule change dust settles and if it does turn out that one of your booked non-stop flights is no longer non-stop, take a look at the available flight options (disregarding any price difference) and decide what you'd prefer - even if on different days. DL will gladly move you to your preferred choice for no charge whatsoever. If the first agent doesn't readily agree to fix your booking as you prefer free of charge, politely say "Thank you, I need some more time to think about my options." and call back later.

As others have mentioned, it looks like a schedule change from daily to roughly every other day.

In my experience, looking at "parallel itineraries" gives a good idea of what the new flight days/times/equipment are; and then it should show up in your booking by tomorrow. Then, call at your convenience with your preferred alternatives handy and it shouldn't be a problem.

I understand the "golden ticket "privilege, and it so often comes in handy! While My Salt Lake to Heathrow ticket is using a 70 K business class award, my actual origin that day is Los Angeles. I have a revenue ticket from LA to Salt Lake.

Will Delta take all this into consideration, or will be only help me with Salt Lake to Heathrow?

In general, no. You might get a sympathetic agent, but DL is under no obligation to change your separate LAX-SLC ticket.

While no is the answer, they may be willing to refund it, and change you to fly nonstop from LAX. I've had that done before with a revenue positioning flight for an award. Especially since in your case the most likely re-route would be to LAX.

With PDX LHR starting in May... it's not a surprising change in frequency out of SLC.

PDX would have nothing to do with this. In December a LOT of international frequencies are adjusted for the winter months on all airlines.

Going to watch this closely as I too am on SLC-LHR in July, and also have a positioning flight SAN-SLC but both of my tickets are awards. and not a lot of flexibility on mine for the dates.

I appear to be in a similar situation. As a newbie at international travel and award travel, let me ask these questions:

We just booked a trip to Europe (on Thursday). We're using miles to go Delta One BOI-SLC-LHR on 11/12, and CDG-LHR-SLC-BOI on 11/18.

Trying dummy bookings, the non-stop SLC-LHR on 11/12 (Sunday) appears to be gone. I haven't looked at the return options yet.

Delta.com shows BOI-SEA-LHR (SEA-LHR on Virgin) as being available on 11/12. However, to get in Delta One/Business the tickets show as available if we pay cash, but not available using miles. Can we get switched to those flights?

Second option, a day earlier (11/11) shows our original BOI-SLC-LHR flights as being available, but it costs 135K miles for Delta One instead of the 70K we originally used. Can we switch without using more miles?

One more question: Is DL able to make award space available on Virgin? Not sure of nature of the agreement?

No, they can't force award space on any partner's metal. Only their own.

If low award space on VS is available, yes. If not, typically it's not possible for DL to rebook onto another airline. Ask.
Yes, when rebooking on a DL flight, so long as a seat is available (no matter what price), DL can move you to that flight at no cost.

All the SLC-Europe flights go less than daily during the winter. Days they operate can vary every month but usually they will each operate at least four days per week.