I'm booking a United award ticket for an Asia trip and am using the Excursionist perk to travel from Phuket to Hong Kong for "free." I know there are numerous nonstop flights from HKT-HKG, but the only Star Alliance nonstop is an evening Thai flight that gets into HKG later than I'd like. I can't book Cathay Dragon, etc because it's a United award ticket.

There are a number of connecting flights via BKK that get into HKG hours earlier than that Thai nonstop, so I'd prefer to book one of those in spite of the added connection. There are two options at almost identical times (within about 10 min of each other) I'm considering. One is HKT-BKK and BKK-HKG, both segments on Thai. The other is HKT-BKK on Thai and BKK-HKG on Ethiopian's 787. They each have a 2-hour layover in BKK. In theory, I'd prefer the Thai-Ethiopian combo just because I don't know when I'll ever get the opportunity to fly Ethiopian again, and because I *still* haven't managed to fly the Dreamliner.

Does it seem foolish to add the complication of connecting to a different airline for no reason other than "it sounds cool," or does the fact that they're both Star Alliance and there's a 2-hour connection make it seem like an OK idea? There are at least 2 additional Thai flights from BKK-HKG later that evening in case something happens with the ET flight.