  We classify protocols of entanglement distribution as excessive and
non-excessive ones. In a non-excessive protocol, the gain of entanglement is
bounded by the amount of entanglement being communicated between the remote
parties, while excessive protocols violate such bound. We first present
examples of excessive protocols that achieve a significant entanglement gain.
Next we consider their use in noisy scenarios, showing that they improve
entanglement achieved in other ways and for some situations excessive
distribution is the only possibility of gaining entanglement.
