Thanks William and welcome back. So here's how it's turned out in case others searching threads in the future run into something like this.. I spoke with Honors reservations again tonight and actually got a great agent who fully understood what I was trying to do and the limitations given the room category is sold out. He said that guest assistance actually has more leeway, and they ended up putting a note in the file saying they will credit me 80,000 points at the end of the stay to make up for the last night.I think I still will be paying for 3 nights instead of 2 but the points are supposed to compensate for that....so that's the current plan. Both agents were extremely nice and helpful.

If that room category opens up, I'll just delete the whole reservation and make a new one to save all the hassle of the points credit etc. She said she entered all this into the reservation notes.