"Regular" Delta schedule changes
 

Does DL still make their regular schedule changes on the first or last weekend of the month? I need to book a trans-Atlantic flight w/3 segments and don't want to discover that it's been screwed up by schedule changes the next day. (I'm not talking about changes due to unforeseen emergencies at airports.)

It's nearly every Saturday nowadays: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...hread-172.html

​​​​​​By Monday, it's generally set to the point that you can fix the changes they made.

On some weekends, Schedule Change Saturday is worse than others, but I don't think there's a way to predict this.

Unless your ideal itinerary also happens to be the cheapest itinerary on that day, then schedule changes are a good thing. Non-trivial schedule change allows you to change to any other available itinerary that same day (sometimes even the previous or next day) for free.

This is very powerful. When I'm making a booking far in advance, I often book the really cheap itinerary (usually the one leaving at some ungodly hour) then wait for the inevitable schedule change to switch to a much more desirable/expensive itinerary for free.

I think this is related. Had a flight change alert today. LHR-ATL DL31 on Dec 12. Now leaves LHR 90 minutes earlier (12:30pm instead of 2pm). Is it reasonable (possible) to ask that I be moved to leave the next day Dec 13? There is a later flight at 3:30pm DL33. But, I'd really prefer to add a day, without paying the fare difference. Has anybody had any experience with that sort of thing. Yes, I could call, but asking here is more fun :-).

You can certainly always try, but given that there's a flight later that afternoon, I'd imagine you'd have to come up with a pretty solid story as to why that later segment won't work for you, unfortunately.

I think you'd have a hard time justifying why that 90 mins earlier requires you to leave the next day (especially with an available flight later in the day). Never hurts to try. I'd say they will probably decline.

Have you tried the "Modify Flights" option online? DL is allowing me to theoretically change two of my flights to +/- 2 days for a change of 15 minutes or less on both itineraries, even with alternate same day routings available. This is a screenshot of what pops up when I go to "Modify Flights" for the itinerary (well, itineraries) that have a schedule change:
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...118520b3ba.jpg

I think you could phrase your request as something like “Delta changed the schedule of my flight to depart earlier however I am not able to make it to the airport earlier. Rather than try to make the new flight I was schedule on work, I would like to depart the next day since I can make arrangements easily for a next day departure.”

I just had a Upper Class JFK-LHR (Virgin Atlantic metal, DL ticket) change by 90 minutes on 11/4 and asked to change to a flight on 11/3 and they did it with no pushback.

Had another flight 11/30 Upper Class JFK-LHR (Virgin Atlantic metal, DL ticket) and even with a change of just 1hr they let me change to another flight few hrs earlier. This was a different diamond desk agent on a separate call.

But may just be my luck, I almost never get turned down for 1hr or more schedule changes. Just ask nicely and don't hesitate to HUCA.

+/- 1 day should be no issue with agent. This is within policy for schedule changes. There was a change that OTA can no longer make this change. However they just need call DL support if passenger wants, as it is still within policy.

They had issues with OTAs going wild with new flights. Ie booking passengers with 5 minute changes to next day, not correctly reissuing tickets, etc... They had to impose some limits.

After the 90-minute change on DL31 (LHR-ATL), I was able to call in and get the flight moved to the next day. Easy peasy, no questions asked.