Just noticed this today, Priority Club appears to be offering “Cash and Points” redemption options.
When searching for an award, there’s a choice of buttons — Points Only, Points + $30, and Points +$60.
Each $30 cash increment reduces the required points by 5000. Put another way, when redeeming for an award you can buy points in blocks of 5000 for 6/10ths of a cent. That’s roughly what I value points at to begin with, but it’s a nice option to leverage your points.
There does appear to be the start of a Flyertalk thread on the subject, but so far it’s not done much more than notice the option is out there.
I think I see it now: room costs $90, you pay $60 + 5K points, you cancel res and you get 15K points credited.
Do i have it now?