We're planning to go to Chengdu this summer (June / July) to visit family. Currently have USA-CGK and KUL-USA flight on ANA J around the same time - booked last year for a speculative SE Asia trip, but now that's off the table. Thinking about keeping those flights and getting myself to CTU/TFU from there. I found CGK-CAN-CTU for 17.5k DL miles, reasonable enough, but it's an extra 7hr of BIS in Y, plus needing to clear CGK immigration + overnight hotel. Similar story for CTU/TFU-KUL, though I might have an extra day in KL to visit my fav food stalls.

Given the expensive and general lack of flights to China, would you keep this itin and somewhat painfully fit it for China, or book something new? If new, I'm not expecting anything above Y, but I also don't want to pay $2000 for Y. Looking into flying to ICN/HKG/whatever and taking separate flight/train to Chengdu.

Tough call. Many of us are getting to China on weird itineraries these days, so not sure what to recommend.
The train to get you on your final leg to Chengdu is probably your best bet.

I have looked/booked some weird flights in order to get China. In January, I had IAD-SFO-ICN-HKG (UA and OZ) and ICN-SFO-IAD (UA), with two separate tickets to connect, HKG-HGH-ICN. This was to satisfy the transit visa (TWOV). Recently, I booked award tickets in J (US to TPE) and economy (TPE-PVG) because of good connection at TPE. I also search HKG, TYO and ICN connection possibilities. I could find good connection for certain days of the week, for example, PVG-NRT-IAH-ORF with 80 min at NRT. Some airlines do not operate daily flight between a city pair. So, you need to find other dates in order to find good connections. It is a lot of work to save $$.

Keep the business flights, use miles to connect to/from China.

Absolutely no point in spending $2k on economy roundtrip tickets to China.

Thanks for the thoughts so far. Couple questions / observations.

1. A lot of websites such as the Merrill portal and Capital One portal don't recognize TFU. If I put CTU, they only search CTU. I don't suppose there's a way around that?

2. Chengdu-KUL options are truly crappy. Even paid connections thru HKG take 17+ hours. and almost all have 2 stops.

3. A couple CZ flights are significantly more expensive on the Merrill and CapOne portals than CZ.com. Guess that's just how it is.

4. CZ.com shows 600 RMB refund fee for standard Y (lowest fare), but says "Refund /Change fee listed above is for reference only.The actural charge may differ." Anyone have experience with how their fees are actually determined?

5. One possible itin gets into CAN at midnight, then onto KUL at 8am next morning. Both are CZ flights. Does anyone know if I need to exit security and pick up / recheck bags, or would the bag be checked all the way to KUL and I can stay & sleep airside?

There are 1-stop saver tickets in economy and business TFU-BKK-KUL or TFU-SIN-KUL bookable through any Star Alliance airline available on most Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Overnight required in BKK or SIN, but you can get almost a full day in either of those cities if you deliberately book a long connection, so you can turn the stopover into another destination. Only 20k miles for economy and 45k miles for business if you book using United miles.

CTU T1 started to transit to TFU on 3/26/2023. Many airlines haven't started the migration from CTU to TFU. I just received email from Cathay Airlines that my flight from CTU to HKG got changed to TFU at the same departure time.

Thanks for checking. I love Bangkok, Singapore and HK, but this is one of those times I just want to get to KL so was looking for a fast way.

BKK-KMG