travelling to HK and Tokyo
 

any tips on low cost travel to HK and Tokyo??

Ive flown to HK before and bought a round trip ticket there on dragon air to Tokyo.

But someone mentioned that I should try and grab a flight from van to tokyo that has a stopover in HK (or flight to HK with stop over in Tokyo). I priced that out on JAL and it was $4600 (im travelling in July). Anyone done this before? and for cheaper???

You should be able to get a flight to Tokyo for $900ish on JAL (try sidestep.com).

With China Eastern you can get flights to Hong Kong for around the same price (assuming its not Chinese new year or anything). Definitely recommended to use a Travel Agent.