DrGiggles

Am trying to fly family from different points in the US to HKT for my wedding using miles. For some reason flights inbound seem fine (plenty of sensible connections from mideast or Asian hubs direct to HKT). However, the return flights seem to not have a lot of options that i see on expertflyer other than Cathay who don't seem to release seats until close in which probably doesn't work for us.

Is the best bet to fly a local carrier HKT to BKK then book an award ticket from there? Would i be able to interline bags from HKT to the final destination for all alliances or would I need to pickup bags in BKK and re-check and finally, any thoughts on minimum time needed to clear domestic arrival to int'l departure.

Finally, in the cases that I can get people from US into BKK on an award but not into HKT, any thoughts on minimum connection time needed to go from int'l arrival into bkk to domestic departure? (same interline questions apply here as well). Any other nuances i should know about the transfer?

sorry for all the questions but have been banging my head on a wall for the last few hours.

thanks
DrG