You Can Now Book ITA Airways Award Flights with Delta SkyMiles — With a Catch

In a bit of good news, you can now earn and redeem on Delta SkyMiles on ITA Airways flights, but there's a catch. You can only book business class seats, and ITA's entire route map hasn't been rolled out across Delta's website yet.

Here's what we know so far about this new SkyMiles redemption opportunity.

You Can Now Book ITA Airways Flights with Delta SkyMiles

If you've got a stash of SkyMiles, you can now redeem them for flights on Italy's revamped flag carrier, ITA Airways. However, given the cabin limitations and the high award costs, this new redemption option will be a niche opportunity for many readers. Still, it's an exciting development nonetheless. It's hard to complain about another way to fly using points and miles.

At the time of writing, only ITA Airways business class seats are available for purchase with Delta SkyMiles. You won't find premium economy or economy awards (at least not yet).

When ITA awards initially went live on Delta's website, only certain sections of ITA's route map were bookable. At first, this included intra-Europe award flights, as well as itineraries to India and South America. Now, the bookable routes have expanded, and include flights to and from and United States and a couple routes to Africa.

Here's a snapshot of some of the routes we've seen for sale and the one-way business-class pricing you can expect:

• Rome (FCO) to London (LHR): 25,000 SkyMiles + $55
• Athens (ATH) to Rome (FCO): 25,000 SkyMiles + $46
• Frankfurt (FRA) to Milan (LIN): 25,000 SkyMiles + $71
• Zurich (ZRH) to Rome (FCO): 25,000 SkyMiles + $55

Credit: Delta

• Cairo (CAI) to Rome (FCO): 42,500 SkyMiles + $64
• Delhi (DEL) to Rome (FCO): 65,000 SkyMiles + $26
• São Paulo (GRU) to Rome (FCO): 105,000 SkyMiles + $21

Credit: Delta

Unfortunately, pricing for ITA award flights between the United States clocks in at a steep 375,000 SkyMiles (plus $5.60 in taxes and fees).

Credit: Delta

Finding ITA award availability that's bookable with Delta SkyMiles is rather challenging. Sure, it's out there if you look hard enough, but not to the extent the award space is available on partners like Virgin Atlantic or Air France-KLM.

For example, you can book an ITA Airways award flight from Miami to Rome via Virgin Atlantic Flying Club for 85,000 Virgin points:

Credit: Virgin Atlantic

However, if you complete the same search on Delta's website, no ITA Airways search results will appear:

Credit: Delta

Final Thoughts

You can now book ITA flights with Delta SkyMiles. Unfortunately, the redemption opportunities are limited to business class awards and select portions of ITA's route map. Hopefully, more routes in more classes will become available over time and at a more practical price point, making this a more useful redemption across the board.

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