One of my best friends is getting married on August 31th in Ipoh, Malaysia (IPH). The nearest international airport is KUL. I will be travelling from NYC. I have 100K AA miles in the bank and an earned (but not yet received) AANYC certificate. I'm also willing to spend reasonable $$ (<~$1K) for the right reasons. My priorities are 1. get to the church on time (actually get to Ipoh for the rehearsal the afternoon of August 30), and 2. have at least one stopover in HKG (TPE, Tokyo and/or Seoul would be great but not essential), and 3. use OW partners if AA mileage were possible. The earliest I can leave the US is August 27-28, and I can spend up to 2 weeks.

Some of the things I've thought about by reading other comments on this board include 1. CX All-Asia Pass, 2. AANYC to Tokyo, and then use a OW Visit Asia pass, or 3. AA code shares. There seems to be a lot of choices, each with their up and down sides, so I'd like to get any thoughts about any of these options, routings, award travel versus upgrading with miles, or any other creative combinations.

I also understand that August 31 is Malaysia's Independence Day. Are there any travel issues involved with that holiday? Thanks so much in advance.

AUG 31st is Malaysia's Independence Day. No, things are as per usual. There is an airport in IPOH and you may purchase a domestic ticket between KUL (the main international airport) and IPH for something like US$35 oneway.

For AA award tickets, it's about 110K points for a Business Class return. Your options are CX via HKG or AA/JL via NRT connecting to JL to KUL.

I suggest you try and book your flights ASAP as late summer seasons can be pretty full on these flights.

If you want to use $$... don't buy the CX All Asia pass as this ticket does not accrue any mileage points. If you get your AANYC cert, you may try to get to NRT on AA, and then maybe redeem a CX/JL ticket from there to KUL using your AAdvantage points. Buying a CX ticket in Asia will most likely be in any class other than H or B and you won't earn AA points.

Best option in my opinion if you want to earn miles is simply buy a ticket on AA codesharing with JL via NRT to KUL.

Thanks Guy for the info! It looks like I'm going to buy the flight. I was confused about what was the best value based on the different $$/mile combos. I wanted to share this analysis, valuing 1 mile = 2 cents:

$$ only: $1456 on CX in H, earn 19K AA elite miles + 25% gold bonus (AA code share is >$2500, too expensive)
-$1456, +23,750 miles = -961

points: OW award 70K in coach, 110K in business (cost $250 to buy the 10K points I need)
$0, -70,000 miles = -1400
-$250, -110,000 miles = -2450

or AANYC to NRT (free), OW award 40K coach, 60K business (Asia 1 to Asia 2)
$0, -40,000 miles = -800
$0, -60,000 miles =-1200

or AANYC to NRT (free), buy NRT -> KUL ($494 on CX in H), earn 6800 miles +25% bonus
-$494, 8500 miles = -324

pass: CX All-Asia pass $999+ tax.
-$999, 0 miles = -999

Based on the above, the most efficient use would be AANYC + buy an onward ticket. On the other hand, the CX H ticket beats out the pass, would rack up the most points, and is a slightly better value than the pass. Is this a valid way to think about these choices?

I noticed that CX sometimes has a codeshare on the HKG->KUL flight with Malaysian Airlines (MH). Does CX have a codeshare on MH's flight from EWR->KUL?

No. CX only codeshares with MH on the KUL-HKG v.v. run. And besides you cannot earn AA miles on an airline not flown by a oneworld carrier even with a CX flight number.

True, but only because CX doesn't codeshare with any of AA's non-OneWorld partners any more...

You can earn AA miles on any flight with an AA flight number, regardless of whether it is flown by a OneWorld carrier or by some other (JAL, etc.).

You can also get miles on any flight operated and marketed by one of AA's partners (including the OneWorld partners).

What you cannot do, in general, is the second level of "indirection" (to use a techie term)... get miles on a flight using the code of one of AA's partners, but operated by an airline which is not a partner of AA.

However, there are cases where a flight is flown by a non-OneWorld carrier with a "OneWorld" code where I believe you could earn miles: for example LHR-GVA flown by Swiss (as a non-OW carrier, but an AA partner), booked under BA would, I think, be eligible for AA Miles.