Your question makes me think you are looking for a better way to do the wrong thing. The 'wrong thing' in this case is investing in load funds. Even if you find a better way -- and I'm not convinced that you have -- you would still be doing the wrong thing.

If you don't want to take the no-load route, then you have to wrestle with share classes and their complications.

I can give you a general rule of thumb: If you'll hold your investment in a load fund (or within the same family of load funds) for five years or more, you will probably be better off buying A shares at the start.

If you're contemplating making a substantial investment, you should know that 'break points' will reduce the front-end load of A shares in percentage terms. These break points typically begin for investments of $25,000, and they apply to total investments in a fund family, not just in a single fund.

If you want to own A shares, as your question implies, why wouldn't you just buy them at the start? That way you'd avoid paying the significantly higher recurring expenses of C shares.

As far as I know, C shares do not normally convert to A shares, though you may have found a situation I'm not aware of. The reason to buy C shares is to avoid paying the up-front load of A shares. But are you proposing to pay that load after five years, when your account presumably will be worth more money? It can get pretty confusing.

One other thing: when you own C shares, the higher expenses not only reduce your returns by up to 1 percent a year. Assuming your fund balance grows, this higher expense percentage is imposed on larger balances -- costing you even more money.

The reason to buy load funds is so you don't have to try to figure all these things out for yourself. No matter what share class you buy, some of your money will pay a sales commission to an advisor. You should use this advisor to tell you what class of shares will be best for you -- and to explain why.