Could use some more quick help here if you guys can offer!

I've decided to expand this to bring my parents along as well. My dad retired 2 years ago now, but my mom is retiring the end of May. Because of her last day, we cannot leave until the last day of May at the earliest. I've figured out award tickets with UA getting to Taipei, but getting to/from Guilin/Zhangjiajie/Huangshan/Jiuzhaigou is a major pain! With Star Alliance, all of these cities seem to connect back to Beijing instead of to each other, which is way out of the way.

My overall thoughts are to do 3-3.5 days in Taiwan, seeing Taipei for 2-2.5 of those days, and one full day out to Taroko National Park. From there we head to central China for almost a week. I think Guilin/Yangshuo is a must for 2.5-3 days, plus one more central town like it for another 2.5-3 days. Zhangjiajie is highest on the list after Guilin/Yangshuo, followed by Jiuzhaigou and then Huangshan. My concern with Zhangjiajie is getting there from Guilin/Yangshuo, and concern with Jiuzhaigou is altitude. I get pretty bad altitude sickness and it seems this area is very high. Huangshan doesn't seem quite as scenic as the others.

So, any recommendations here? As far as the award ticket itself, I am planning Taipei as our stopover, and then we'll take the rest of that leg to central China, so I have to get that figured out quickly. Since I do not have endless time off of work like the retired people (I wish!), I am going to head home after Guilin/Yangshuo and the other central city (or maybe spend one day in the gateway city as well).

My parents are going to see Shanghai, Beijing and Xi'an after I leave. I wouldn't mind spending 1 day in Shanghai on my way home because it has been 5 years since I've been there and i'm sure it has changed due to all the construction we saw when we were there!

BTW, my last concern with all of this is the rainy season. Trying to figure out if we should push this whole thing to Sept/Oct. I have a Thailand/Vietnam trip setup with the wife starting the 2nd week of Nov already though.