I got in under the wire on the Merrill+ card. By the time I'm ready to redeem my points for flights to Israel, I'll have roughly 53,000 points (the 50K bonus plus the 3K I have to spend to get it). Two questions: 1. Is there an easy way to search for $500 flights for the dummy flight? 2. Is it better to go slightly over or slightly under the $500 sweet spot in booking the dummy flight? I'm thinking that as long as I'm leaving at least 25K points for the real flight, I'm maxing out the value.