Mileage Run Discussion - Best US City for Originating MRs

In honor of this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mileage-run-discussion/1173249-worst-us-city-originating-mrs.htm (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mileage-run-discussion/1173249-worst-us-city-originating-mrs.html), I am curious what everyone thinks the best city for starting a MR is.

In case you didn't guess, being LAS based - I say Vegas.

SAN, PHX, LAS, ABQ, COS, and AUS are my personal favorites.

its highly carrier dependent coupled w/ the amount of competition.....

Normally a large city with many carriers, multiple airports but no real dominant carrier. Certainly NYC is one of the best for MRs. Also a city like NYC is heavily catering to business and paid premium flyers that want frequency and that results in some excess capacity.

Based on informal research from this forum it seems like NYC and WAS do quite well.

Normally a large city with many carriers, multiple airports but no real dominant carrier. Certainly NYC is one of the best for MRs. Also a city like NYC is heavily catering to business and paid premium flyers that want frequency and that results in some excess capacity.

I'd say LAX is best, better than NYC. BOS seems to do very well, we get most of the NYC fares as well and a bonus with the extra 100-150ish miles normally from NYC east to BOS, and B6 is stronger at BOS than JFK and WN is stronger here than in NYC as well. None of the majors are dominant at BOS much over the other, whereas in NYC EWR is practically owned by UA and JFK by DL and AA. There have been a number of good SFO fares this year as well.

I'm based out of SFO and there are consistently a few good fares every year to the east coast (especially on UA).

I think LAX is probably marginally better though ... it seems to be easier to tack on LAX-SFO-xxx than SFO-LAX-xxx

I think LAX is the cheapest for runs within the lower 48 states and NYC is the cheapest for international and HI runs. BOS isn't too bad from a price perspective and is a lot less of a hassle to fly in and out of on AA than JFK, LGA or LAX.

for UA in the WAS area, BWI seems to have periodic good offerings. i haven't seen anything worthwhile out of DCA/IAD.

1) BOS which is an ‘open’ airport without a dominant carrier (competition)
2) LAX/SFO for transcons and international routes (size/location)
3) NYC with 3 major airports (capacity)
4) Cities with a significant LLC presence like WN (competition)


SunLover

I'd say:

1. HNL
2. LAX/SFO for Transcon
3. IAH/AUS, slightly better than DFW for me.
4. SEA is ok, but not as good as LAX/SFO
5. BOS is one of the best, but not for Asia destinations.
6. MCO/MIA/FLL/TPA are great too.