Whoa, I had no idea that these could be redeemed outside the US! Thanks for the info, that is good to know. But it looks my only travel between now and the end of the year will be for business, so I won't have an opportunity to use these points.

CP replied to my email, saying that my points would expire, but since I was active duty, if I contacted them at the beginning of next year they'd reinstate them. Problem is, I'm not active duty. I'm a civilian living on a military base (most folks here are active duty, but there are a few civilians). So, I decided to redeem 25k points for 5k AA miles. Would rather have had the CP points, but this is a good alternative. tls