All,

I will be flying DL LAX-HND on an already booked ticket, with scheduled landing at 3:05pm. I'd like to fly on to Nagasaki that day. I'm looking at flights offered via the major airline's gaijin discount programs (described here).

Does anyone have experience with misconnecting on one of these tickets? I'm trying to gauge my overall risk profile for this approach. If I am for some reason unable to get to my HND-NGS flight on time, how do the major Japanese airlines typically treat that situation? On a US or European carrier, I'd expect to receive no quarter or flexibility in reaccommodation, but my experience with Japanese customer service suggests to me that I might fare better here. I have no status on any relevant airline.

An alternate option for me is to flip my trip around and visit Tokyo on the front end and Kyushu on the 2nd half of my stay, but this appears on first glance to be a less efficient allocation of time for me.