My personal strategy for Asia is booking a cheap ticket across the Pacific on United and using those miles to travel within Asia. For example, when I fly to Singapore next week I am flying on a $1200 coach ticket that will earn me 40,000 miles and I am buying a coach ticket to BKK on Swiss for $170 and then redeeming 30,000 miles to go to Bali. All in, with this combination I am going home with 12,000 miles more than I started with and will have spent $1370 to visit 3 cities. Plus the real kicker is my RT ticket to SIN is upgraded to business using SWUs.