Hi all - appealing to the brain trust on this one. Booking two RT tickets for a newly married couple to go to Kauai from DFW in August. I’d like to buy them J, or PE at minimum, since this is a special trip for them. Flying AA is not a must, but from DFW figured AA is the likely option to get lie-flat J instead of narrow body domestic first out of LAX or SFO as on other carriers. I thought I could just get AA or google flights to sell a cheapie Hawaiian HNL-LIH segment inside of a non-stop DFW-HNL ticket, but not having much luck.

I can force the AA website to show a Hawaiian segment, but prices are silly at $4k/person in PE and something like $6k in J (I assume this is a full-fare refundable ticket?). Meanwhile, it really wants to show me an LAX connection on an A321 each way for ~$2k/person, which is roughly where I assumed this should price out. Same on google flights.

Am I missing anything? Haven’t ever booked a Hawaii trip from DFW, but have never had trouble getting the website to tack on non-OW segments to lesser-travelled destinations in Europe with AA as the main overwater carrier.

Thanks a ton!