schedule changes

hi
I booked upper class flights from heathrow to fort myers florida via Atlanta for Christmas.
original flight left at 9.30 giving us 3-4 hours to connect,now flight has been changed to 11.00am on delta giving us 1hour 40 mins to connect.
phoned virgin who stated 9.30 flight no longer exists hence the change,they cannot get us on a later connection without extra charges.
the 9.30 flight is stiil on virgin/delta website so am I being fibbed to?
the exact same thing happened earlier this year on the same route!
any thoughts or suggestions?
thanks

The opposite has just happened to me! My flight to Atlanta was at 11.00 am and that has just been rescheduled to 9.25am. I was told if I wanted to go on 11.00am my fare class wasn't available and I would have to pay extra( the extra was more than the original ticket cost!) I would question if your new layover time is long enough. I think 1 hr 40 is too tight to clear customs and get your luggage then check in for your connection. I managed to get virgin to alter my onward flight with no charge but it took over an hour to do. Good luck with your flight.

I believe the minimum connection time for ATL for a inbound flight is 1 hour 35 minutes. I also fly to ATL a lot however from MAN. I would give them a rig again next week sometimes when Virgin and Delta both do a schedule update at the same time it takes a while for it to show up. I had a similar situation last Christmas flying out of MAN, my original booking was 11am out of MAN then about a month before it got moved forward to 9:30. ATL is very efficient now I have made flight connections with less than 45 minutes with customs included so don't worry about the connection time you should be fine.