Hello. I am trying to book two RT business class tickets from WAS/PHL-Rome for July, with a Saturday night stay. The miles required are off the charts (in my opinion) at 400,000 to 600,000) plus some fees that are not insignificant but not a deciding factor. Is there a way to use fewer miles that doesn't involve delta.com's outrageous pricing for this trip?

Yes, I know it's high season. But I am also old enough to remember when you could get transatlantic business for 80,000 miles. What happened to that?

Those days are over for DL (entirely) and for AA and UA on their own metal as well.

Delta might be an impossibility sub 100K one way, but might be available via AA. Found part business on AA out of BWI to FCO Jul 8 for 89500.

Jiburi

If you want to fly on DL, earn VS miles and book DL flights using VS. That is the only way to get more normal (still high, but not absurdly and arbitrarily high) pricing.

As for the DL FFP, you cannot use DL miles to originate in Europe or North America. That is when pricing is off the charts (as in literally, there are no charts, and pricing is closely tied to revenue - the years ago leaked "EOS" [End of SkyMiles] that DL was hiring for is indeed here - and you will get about 1 cpm value). If it works for your travel, buy a ticket to, say, ICN, and then use DL's SlyMiles to book ICN-xxx (destination) flights. That is the only way to get somewhat reasonable pricing in the DL SlyMiles FFP: do not book any award flights with origination in Europe (if flying to NA) or North America (flying to anywhere), or vice versa.

You got old.

And if on one of their partners, the taxes are crazy enough to make you not want to use miles!

DL award levels vary from market to market from/to US these days (just as revenue fares do). If you reposition to JFK, D1 awards are available from 196K roundtrip (potentially less with Amex 15% discount if you can find DL metal in both directions with DL OZ award inventory availability, but that doesn't look possible in the summer). These award levels require mid-week travel. So if you want to travel around weekends, there will only be higher award levels available for booking.

The key is to find where there are cheaper D1 revenue fares as award levels tend to correlate with them. You can use Google Flights map view mode to check D1 pricing out of various US gateway cities to EU markets (there are currently $2.5K roundtrip D1 revenue fares on JFK-FCO and a number of other EU destinations).