I think brunos and I have the same thought. Ignore the misconnection risk and just fix the visa risk in advance. It sounds like you're used to this and also got a good deal on the original fare (maybe? I'm still not convinced but you can look in a few weeks and see if that's the case. It's rare that a direct flight into hong kong is cheaper, but I mentioned CNY and with Tet you've the same challenge, though for a single country).