Asia - Best/cheapest city in China for flying to Kuala Lumpur

This October we are spending 2 weeks in China and then flying to Kuala Lumpur (KUL) which will be our base for traveling over the next 3 months.

We start in Beijing and then the plan was to go to Xian, Chengdu and the Lijang.

But, what is the simplest/cheapest way to get from China to KUL? There are 4 of us traveling.

This October we are spending 2 weeks in China and then flying to Kuala Lumpur (KUL) which will be our base for traveling over the next 3 months.

We start in Beijing and then the plan was to go to Xian, Chengdu and the Lijang.

But, what is the simplest/cheapest way to get from China to KUL? There are 4 of us traveling.

You might want to consider reversing the order of your China trip, and flying there from TSN on Air Asia. Air Asia also serves HGH and SZX, iirc. (BTW, I'm not a huge fan of Air Asia, and they aren't always the cheapest, but they are never very expensive either.)

Given time of year you are going, start in the north (Beijing) and tour southward. You may wish to start pricing open-jaw returns on mainline airlines (i.e. KUL-PEK and KMG-KUL) and see if any good fares come up. An LCC like Air Asia might be an option if you can commit far enough in advance to take advantage of a promo fare and will travel light. The closest Air Asia gateways to your final location (Lijiang) would be Chengdu or Chongqing, maybe Guilin but you'll have to see how the flight schedule lays out with your specific dates. Due to your short time frame, you'll likely need to fly between Lijiang and Chengdu (or Chongqing) so add another USD $100-120 for that. If Kunming is your final China city, you can overnight sleeper train inexpensively from LIjiang to there. Which will start making the mainline look better. Don't rule out flying KMG-SIN-KUL as an alternative to get back, or KMG-BKK-KUL.

Air Asia is commencing service KUL to/from PEK instead of TSN, I believe starting in last half of June. But do the mainline airline exercise first to get a baseline, as I've never found Air Asia tickets to/from China, once you figure in the additional costs and compare all-ins, to be a compelling value purchase.

We did up with a reasonable ticket from Guilin to KUL. Looks like Air Asia is trying to move into China rather aggressively.