Haha, you're not the only one who's mentioned that! I guess i'm going crazy on the idea because we haven't been to SE Asia (well, my fiance was born in the Philippines but hasn't been back since she left 14 years ago) and wanted to visit as many countries as possible while we were away.

My rationale for stopovers in NRT and SIN on my way to DPS is because those are required stops on the SQ flight from LAX to DPS. So i figure we've never been to either country, so why not build in stopovers there! Same thing with Hong Kong (or Seoul, or Taipei) as a stopover on the way from MNL back to LAX (because, sadly, Philippine Airlines is the only airline with direct flights to LAX but has no airline partners).

We tentatively have 6 days booked in DPS, 6 in HKT, and 8 in MNL (where we will probably go to Boracay or Palawan, in addition to visiting some family in the Metro area). I think the one city i could do away with is Bangkok, and simply use it as a layover to transit from HKT to MNL on Thai Airways. I could reallocate the time otherwise spent in Bangkok to have a full week in Bali and a full week in Phuket (and save $200 that I would have to spend buying the stopover)