Hi all. I have a trip to Hawaii planned for next August. I've already got tickets to and from Hawaii and the mainland, but we will be staying in Kauai and our flight to the mainland departs from HNL, so we need an interisland flight to go from LIH-HNL on the morning of departure. We will be using miles for that HA flight, so the only question I have is whether to use Hawaiian's own miles (8500/ea) or AA's (5000/ea)? I value HA miles less highly than AA, but was wondering if there's any particular advantage to using AA miles in our situation:

My concern is that we need to transit at HNL from the HA flight onto the AA flight back to the mainland. I've heard this can be a little complicated with checked bags (which we will have), so I'll be leaving at least 2.5 hours for that, but the bigger concern is if the HA flight is delayed or cancelled for any reason, then we might miss the AA flight home, and AA would be under no obligation to put us on the next flight out since they had nothing to do with us missing their flight. Would it help at all to spend AA miles for the HA flight? Is there any way to "link" those 2 rewards (despite the actual flights being on different carriers) so that AA can 'see' what happened if we miss the HA flight and need to be rebooked on an alternate flight to the mainland? (If it makes no difference, and wouldn't give us an advantage in case of a missed flight, then I'm inclined to use HA miles instead.)

Bump to see if anyone can answer?