Don't American and Delta have mini-hubs in Austin?

Fins Up! said:

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Don't American and Delta have mini-hubs in Austin?

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AA scaled all that back last year and now only serves their hubs. Delta is in the process of expanding, but it appears to be a slow.

What perks do you want from higher status? Credit card spend an option to get there?

Increasingly chasing status isn't worth it. Perks have been watered down and often you can get the perks with premium credit cards. For example only 12% of first class seats on Delta were upgrades last year.

You won't get much better perks from consolidating. Status is nice but there's too many people with silver or gold to matter much. Try to stay with the one with the best options, likely United then go with whatever is cheaper or fits your schedule. I flew on all 3 last year because United wasn't always most convenient or didn't go where I needed.

If it was me, I'd go with Delta because they're likely the least popular in Austin, meaning your first/last leg is more likely to get the upgrades. Had a gate agent in ORD tell me they didnt have a huge United following in San Antonio so that's why I usually got upgraded. I'd imagine AA upgrades are hard to come by in Austin. Not sure about United, when I was flying out of Austin it wasn't huge and i did alright but no idea what it's like now.

AA is pulling back from Austin and Delta is expanding so this may be true today, but could be changing. Might be easier to convince people in Austin to changeover in Dallas rather than Atlanta, Minneapolis, or Salt Lake City though.

You can do what I did when faced with this problem.

Move to Denver.

My Austin Claim to Fame is that I was one of the last customers to fly out of Robert Mueller and one of the first to fly into ABIA.

Having the first step of your journey be - Fly to Dallas, got really old.

We fly both Southwest (primarily non-stop / domestic) and American out of Austin with no issues.

On AA we rarely connect through DFW since there are plenty of other direct flights still. Internationally we usually fly through Miami since we are normally headed to a Caribbean island. Also nice to be able to stop in the Admiral Club for a snack/quite area.

With that - status in Austin is nice if you have luggage to check and/or traveling with the family. Also nice if you do not have TSA pre-check.

With AA pulling back on their direct flights and having to connect through DFW, they are off the list for me. I will go way out of my way to not have to connect through Dallas. I have had nothing but bad experiences between DFW and DAL with weather, etc. with most Delta connections going through ATL, same deal. Transferring through ATL is just not high on my list of favorite things. I fly United alot, mostly through IAH, and it has been very convenient for me. The flight from AUS to IAH is almost always a 737 and usually comes in and out of Terminal E. I have a United Club card, so it is easy to grab a drink or some food on the way through with multiple United Clubs in IAH. They are not super luxurious, but the drinks are wet and it beats sitting in a crowded boarding area or trying to find a seat at a restaurant/bar near my gate.

Depending how often you fly together , why not consider southwest and a companion pass? They have great options out of Austin. Then other spouse gets a united card and the status it confers and you have best of both worlds.