Easy to book KA flight that is nonstop PEN-HKG and flies twice daily, if you really are deadset against MH. If you book on AA.com just do segment by segment search, make sure to check nonstop and the dragon air flights should come up.
I re-read the fare rules and it's one of those fares that does allow changing other than first segment without fee or recalculation. So if you booked a 23 hour stopover in HKG like I did, and wife barfs on the idea, it should be easy to change to tighter connections. Key is to make no change to first segment. But it's sure easy to find J availability for five ;-)
I'm still on the fence about my booking. It's to replace five awards that routed back from Asia to SEA through Chicago, and it was a bit less direct than we wanted. And while this routing is much more direct home, it does involve getting from REP to PEN at the end of our trip in Asia ( which I now see involves routing through Kuala Lumpur). It also raises the question of whether I can make any use of 275k miles we would be returning back to advantage account, with the March 22 devaluation rapidly approaching.