tslugmo

In April I will be in Maui, and we're looking to head to China in the Summer or Fall. I'd like to combine the trips and use AA's NAGC stopover in LAX in order to maximize our miles.

It seems that getting from OGG to China in J class is pretty difficult, at least for the date that I want to fly in April. There are plenty of HNL-LAX J seats, but there are no J seats direct from OGG-LAX. If I fly HA from OGG-HNL-LAX, the AAgent routes the China leg as a separate award. They also charge me an interisland award if I want to get from OGG to HNL in order to take the single award HNL-LAX-China ticket.

So, it seems my best option is to pay for a $80 flight from OGG-HNL, then just take AA from HNL-LAX(stopover)-PVG in J, which I can do without a problem on AA's website. Is that the best strategy?

My other questions are:

1. Is there an advantage to trying to route any of these legs on parters instead? For instance, is CX's or JAL's J class LAX-PVG better than AA's, and is it possible to book that instead on one award? We rarely fly J, want to get our money's worth. Even a < 24hr Tokyo stopover sounds kind of cool.
2. We intend to visit HKG and PVG. Given our druthers, we'd probably fly into HKG first. It looks like AA doesn't fly LAX-HKG that I can tell. CX flies LAX-HKG but the AAgent is telling me this would be two awards (HNL-LAX on AA, LAX-HKG on CX). Any way around this?
3. Anything like the free NAGC stopover to get a free flight from HKG to PVG?
4. We may fly to KTM from China while there, any smart way to combine that trip, or just book that separate?

Thanks so much for your help! ^