Originally Posted by TTT
Actually, no. Journey Control only enforces the married segments. It does not dictate a legal connection/stopover. Those are determined by the routing rules (which Delta has restricted on most all fares including award tickets). The Journey Control software, if it was in place with award bookings, would have thrown back an error when trying to piece together RDU-ATL and ATL-LAX because the two segments married together have no N class available. However, each flight has N available separately, and since Journey Control is not affecting award bookings, each flight can be selected separately and redeemed at the SkySaver rate.
No, this is incorrect. If you redeem an award ticket from RDU to ATL, ATL to LAX (presumably LAX-RDU on the return) where N is not available from RDU to LAX via ATL, the software will count ATL as a stopover so that RDU-ATL in N plus ATL-LAX in N can be used.
I have done this one time when award availability on the through flight via ATL was unavailable, award availability on the separate flights was available, and I did not need a stopover (coincidentally the only award ticket I ever issued without a stopover). So, I made ATL a stopover of 45 minutes or so and got the SkySaver ticket.
If you want a real stopover or open jaw, you cannot use ATL as another stopover to get around the journey control because you are allowed only one stopover or open jaw on an award ticket.