I think from both time and money perspective, I think flying 50k miles is your worst option, unless you need a couple of weekend trips to Asia and have some SWUs you need to blow. HKG and CGK have been having fares in the $800-1000 range, IIRC, and Atkchi is right that miles earned can offset some of the cost.

Segments, out of ORD you can bounce around on Eagle for fairly cheap, routes like MKE-ORD-DFW-ACT can usually be had for $30-40 per segment. Line up a couple of round trips on a weekend, and you can probably knock it out in 3 Saturdays, $800.

If you have time for some fun/leisure, check out the BA Tier Point Run thread. There are basically a lot of runs from Hawaii-LAX-MIA-Caribbean/ Central America in premium cabin for about $600-800 net 5-6k miles one way. (TP Runs will always leave a LAX-MIA in the routing, but you should be able to go through ORD in some cases, and sometimes with a free stopover.)

Then again, if you don't anticipate a lot of travel next year, is it really worth the time and money to re-qualify? You already have plat, which gets you everything except free upgrades and some fees waived. $800-$2000 can pay for a lot of upgrades and fees, especially if you are reduced to leisure travel only.