It's also not exactly fair to compare your chance of missed flights in the U.S. with your chances of missing flights overseas since United is much more likely to hold flights overseas for the connections. Especially so at norita.

Further on this trip, the flight to hnl is the first trip in the morning and you can fly to lax or sfo from chicago the previous night at the same rate, which makes it unlikely to miss a connection there too.

Then at hnl there is a 23 hour layover, so you aren't likely to miss a connection there either. even if you have to take a later flight to hnl. Finally the rest of the trip is pretty close to your original so the chances there aren't different.

I'm still running thru questions myself on a similar trip to bkk i am planning, whether it's worth spending the extra time traveling for the mileage boost, but my view is the connection issue isn't much different from your original.

And after all the subject of this forum IS getting the maximum miles