Hello to all, my first post to flyerTalk!

I've been flying from MCI to KUL for a few times before...

Northwest: MCI - MSP - NRT - SIA (6 hours layover from 12am to 6am) - KUL
Southwest and CX: MCI - LAX (layover until 1am Pacific) - HKG - KUL (Bought WN separately)

I'm planning on going to KUL again in May/June, which means I'm running into shoulder/high season. The local agent quoted the following route with CO and SQ as US$14xx:

MCI - IAH - DME (refuel) - SIA - KUL

but the problem is the leg from IAH to MCI in June, as CO ran out of the $150 tickets for the 5pm flight departing IAH, which the agent suggested the wait-and-see approach. I checked Expedia.com for MCI-IAH... another CO flight in the morning would cost $340 ai, but the 5pm would cost $600 ai!!

Can someone suggest an alternate route with similar price, or what I can do about the IAH to MCI non-stop? I'd hate to have another stop between IAH and MCI given the long flight from SIA to IAH...

Thanks in advance!

Hmm... is this the right sub-forum to ask question like this?

Welcome to FT! For me, the primary driver would be airline alliance and mileage accrual. (This is FT, afterall.) If you want to fly Star Alliance, the CO/SQ itinerary sounds good. If you're a OneWorld guy, flying CX via HKG works well.

If you're just trying to save money, you'll have to do a lot of comparison shopping. Leaving from JFK or LAX is probably your cheapest option to Asia, and you could fly into SIN or BKK, then connect on one of the low-fare Asian carriers like Firefly, Air Asia, Tiger, JetStar, etc. Buying all those separate tickets would be risky because you're not protected if you mis-connect, but it might be cheaper. You won't know until you run the numbers.

Looks like CI (China Airlines) is selling LAX-TPE-KUL for $1,353 right now and SQ has $1,339 SFO-ICN-SIN.

Good luck! Let us know what you decide.

FF isn't my main concern here since my family only have international trip like this maybe once every two years...

Where did you find the price for SQ from SFO, and what dates did you pick? 5/26-6/18?

One more question if you don't mind, I'm try to use ITA website to route the airports that I want for international connecting flights but it keeps suggesting none is found.

I entered MCI as "Departing From", KUL as "Destination", and I put "IAH" in advanced routing code. (Hoping the site to return the CO-SQ itinerary)

Yes, I was using ITA. Read here about how to use the route language. You have to say MCI :: IAH SIN in the "From" box to get it to include connections at IAH & SIN on the outbound (assuming you want to book the "direct" SQ flight that stops in Moscow).

You can use ITA's month-long search to find low fares from LAX.

Happy searching,
David