Sorry if this has been asked before but can you book a reward seat one way and pay the regular fare return. I've found a reward seat on my outbound flight but nothing on return?
Unfortunately the combi fare, which allowed you to do just that, was abolished when VS switched to Delta’s booking system just over a year ago.
You can still do it but you’d have to make separate bookings for each leg and buy a full fare one-way ticket which is extortionate.
Keep checking for reward fares - they can and do appear at random. Or, if you can, try being flexible with dates and routes (eg SEA instead of SFO, MIA instead of MCO etc).