How long do you need to be in NYC before returning to ORD? Anything less than 24 hours should count as a connection on an international ticket, so you could do CDG-JFK overnight JFK-ORD or whatever and have almost a full business day in NYC. In this case, you would book a one way award ticket from CDG to ORD with a long connection in NYC and totally cancel the ORD-NYC RT ticket you have.