Ex-LAX, I'm considering burning a Y reward ticket on CO to get to HKG, and I started looking at some routings, to see if I can do some creative layovers in other cities before going for HKG-IST-LAX RT.

LAX-AKL [NZ]
[layover of 17 hours]
AKL-HKG [NZ]
[4 days in Hong Kong]
HKG-IST-LAX [TK]
[back to L.A., recover for a week or two]
LAX-IST-HKG [TK]
[a few more days in Hong Kong]
HKG-EWR-LAX [CO]

574.66 EUR + 37.90 USD in Taxes/Fees
848.74 USD a/i for a blitz in Auckland, New Zealand, two 4-day trips to Hong Kong, and HKG-IST-LAX in Premium Economy.

Still figuring out dates, but this example was late June/mid-July.