Originally Posted by
pinniped
Unfortunately, you have no choice.
If your short hops were all inside the Wright Amendment footprint, you could potentially explore a two-airline approach: WN for the regional stuff and Star Alliance for Asia, quickly snagging an Aegean elite status to facilitate the travels. But Southwest will only get you to MSY, not BNA or MCO without a stop.
In other words, you are AA's prisoner and I don't think there is really anything you can do about it.
In about a year's time the Wright restrictions will be repealed, so it should not be that much of an issue, although I would discourage it due to their revenue based program.