Originally Posted by TRRed
Three other thoughts:
MCI used to be a hub for US, so consider those options when evaluating UA, its *A and codeshare partner. Going from MCI to FL, CLT would seem to be an obvious stop, for example.
(The next two may not meet your 2 & 3 preferences, but . . .)
Midwest has a fair number of direct destinations from MCI (including LGA and DCA). I believe they partner with AA, so it seems like you should be able to receive AA miles for the Midwest flights. I haven't heard much about them lately; I don't know what kind of financial shape they are in or the extent that they match the lowest fares of others in the market. No F but their traditional Y product used to be better than most and competed with other's F product (I think that the traditional Y is now their Signature Series).
If you travel west a lot and would have to connect anyway, also look at Frontier, who is also a partner of Midwest (but not of AA or UA). They do fly direct to DEN and LAX from MCI. No F that I am aware of.
- US no longer maintains any "mini-hub" type presence at MCI. The old MCI-West Coast flights are gone. You just get the usual PHL, CLT, PIT as far as I know. Still: you can almost think of these as an extension of UA I suppose. I sometimes overlook US when thinking about UA. There might be some US Air Express - I forget if that piece got bought/sold recently or not.
- YX does match fares with the majors where applicable. The have, for the most part, gone no-frills and low-fare where they have to compete with Southwest or others. I just flew them for $118 all incl. ($45.50 base fare each way) to DCA. The cookies and champagne are gone. They provide a few box snacks on each flight for sale - sit in the last 3-4 rows if you want to buy one. I was in the middle of the plane and they were all gone by the time they got to me. All in all I was happy with YX because of the fare and route, but I was surprised at how rock-bottom they've taken their service. The "Best Care In The Air" is now somewhere below the majors and a notch above Southwest. Small planes and 2x2 seating are nice in that there is never an overwhelming line to check a bag or speak to an agent.