US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Alternatives for PIT fliers?

With living close to PIT I do not see too many choices to switch over to any other major carrier while flying out of my prefered airport. All other airlines offer only limited flights and PIT is no hub for any other airline.
So what are other PIT based FF doing. Before 9/11 I was sometimes using YNG (Youngstown, OH). But CO cannceled their service already in early 2001, US in November 2001 and now as the lastest airline, NW also left the airport. There are no more commercial flights out of YNG as far as I know.
CLE is for me at least twice as far away as PIT and fares out of CLE are sometimes pretty high. CO has also announced today their new "NON-REFUNDABLE & STANDBY" rules and even if they are better than the current new "rules" of US (at least you earn status miles on all faires)I still do not like them.
That leaves only CAK, which is no hub at all and has service by US, DL, NW, UA and FL (Airtran).
But also CAK is quiet a bit away from PIT.

Does anyone else has any other alternatives or what are your plans in case US does not reconsider to take back the rule changes. I really would like to hear some thoughts of frequent PIT travellers!

Why would CAK or YNG be improvements? You'd still have to fly to a hub and connect. You can do that out of PIT on any of the majors. For instance, UA offers 6 flights per day to Chicago and four to Washington-Dulles. From there you can go anywhere.

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Unlike some FT members I generally don't want segments i just want non-stops at reasonable fares. I do want miles toward elite status though. I try to avoid layovers as much as possible. I usually use US out of PIT, but have used CO out of CLE (1hour 45 min drive) and occasionally America West out of Columbus (<3hour drive). CAK doesn't make any sense to me unless there is an exceptionally good fare not available anywhere else nearby(not likely). I'd even drive 3.5 hours to IAD for a good transatlantic or transcontinental non stop fare. Many folks wouldn't do that. I would rather do that than have a layover. I think the best option in terms of miles is to use CO out of Cleveland (and/or use CO's PIT connections through Newark and Houston as well).

very unrelated --

i might drive from PIT to IAD also...it's a beautiful drive-- i just did it yesterday and used us 40 from uniontown and took i-68 across western maryland down to 70 and 270.

CAK-PIT-West Coast on US is usually much cheaper than non-stop from PIT if you're under the 21 day rule.

Also, 'B' class fares can usually be had for less than $800 within 21 days. this is generally a win-win (cheaper and ccan be upgraded in advance out of I inventory), and will count for status with the new rules.

Of course, its still silly to have to do this. If only flights from the Latrobe airport (less than an hour east of PIT) were equally cheap.

BTW, I remember reading something in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette a month or so ago about a company starting a luxury bus service from Pittsburgh to Cleveland, with one of the stops at CLE... did that get going? We need them to add service to CAK!

Back in the days when I cared about making status on USAirways and was close, I used to go to either CLE, CMH or CAK at least once a month. CLE was cheaper due to the Southwest effect. CMH is almost always cheaper due to Southwest and also not being anyone (except America West's, I guess) hub. CAK used to be cheaper because they had AirTran's influence (but now PIT has that too).

I have never flown out of IAD, but I drive that route all the time to see my sister in Georgetown, and I-68 is a nice route but it does get boring after a while. I've used MGW and PKB sometimes for getting some cheap fares for segments flying in West Virginia, but that's mostly gone too, now.

On business travel I've used AA a lot. I am hoping that AA will upgrade the 5pm flight to ORD to a F-100 or something, because those RJs are killing me. I hate them so much, especially after you sit 30 minutes on the runway waiting to take off. Every time I've taken one of these flights its packed. I've also seen cheap fares on CO (since we often see US lower fares in CLE, and CO lower fares in PIT) so every so often I've taken the connection through EWR .. which usually means backtracking and also stinks..

So the short answer is no good answer, but it is possible. I'm sticking with AA, just hoping I can avoid JFK..