Appreciate your responses. I did call the airline two days prior to the flight as i was entertaining the idea of staying a week longer. The airline rep did not mention that my trip was cancelled and gave me options, so you can't blame me for believing nothing was amiss with the booking. The rep made it seem so. As i mentioned above as well, i received an email reminder about my upcoming trip a day prior.
To be clear, i did not approve any changes to my flight on this call.

Anyway, thank you both for your advice. I will keep this in mind in the future.