I'm taking my father on a RTW trip departing from Sydney in July. Our first stop is Calgary, Canada. We are departing Sydney on July 4, and as such, all flights in W class to the USA west coast are booked out, and I'm told the wait lists are substantial. So we are currently booked SYD-NRT-DFW-YYC. It's the long way round, but it's all fairly smooth, except for a five hour wait in NRT.

I'm considering re-routing SYD-HKG-NRT-ORD-YYC. This routing has a four hour wait in HKG, which I figure is plenty of time to take the Airport Express into Central and show my father Victoria Harbour and the surrounds. I feel that this would be a better way to spend a four hour wait, than by going into Narita town should we fly via NRT.

Can anyone suggest any serious drawbacks with changing to this routing? By adding an extra sector I guess I'm increasing the chances of bags going missing, but all the connections are reasonably generous, so that should help. Besides, my understanding is that upon entering the US we would have to collect our baggage and re-check for our 'domestic' sector (this being ORD-YYC), which means it's only two connections that the baggage needs to make.

You guys are the experts, so what do you think? I look forward to your thoughts.