So, because of a bereavement my wife needed to travel SNA-MAN. I have some Delta status (still, for now) so was looking at DL of course. The ideal route, which would match up with my return as I am already in MAN, was SNA-ATL-MAN and back.

I looked up on the web (and also with an agent call) this in premium economy and it came to $6k

So, I priced SNA-ATL and ATL-MAN as two separate returns, same flights. $4k.Obvkously for the same seats on the same flights/dates, I booked the latter.

This means she will fly to ATL, have to collect baggage and then check in for her flight to the UK. Not a big issue, becasue there's 4 hours between them. Hoeever the only concern I have, apart form the nconvenince of baggage checking, is IROPS. She won't make it if either flight has an issue.
Would you think DL would combine these if I called them, without asking for more funds? I think the price difference on the web site was because of booking Premium economy on the VS segment - it forced F on SNA-ATL and added $2k.

BTW FWIW flights are 10/24 SNA-ATL DL 2502, ATL-MAN DL2475; 10/30 ATLSNA DL2475 and 10/24 ATL-MAN DL5986, 10/30 MAN-ATL DL5987.