[centex]

Not quite sure what you mean by stretching them, but I know that from time to time, AXP sends out offers that provide a slight savings to the regular rate. There are also some deals through an individual website that provide some savings (Ticketmaster is one that came to mind). Might be worth looking at the dead lobster site (surely you have better seafood options to choose from than *them*).

There is also an option to get an advance on the MR points...might that be what you were thinking of?

Oh, and now that I think about it, I vaguely remember discussions of routing points through a different account and then washing them back to the MR account, with the other account having provided a slightly better rate (ie 5:4) on the transfers. I have not done the math on bringing MR points into my *points account and running them to my Advantage miles and then back in, but I believe it was doable).

This thread is a good reminder that I need to look into that since I have about 65K MR points just sitting around doing nothing for me...