$$$ Prices on AS vs Everyone Else
 

This is probably because I'm not based out of west coast, but flying AS can be very spendy sometimes. I'm just heading to NYC next month and these are the prices I'm seeing:

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...073ca0fe09.png

But then again it's not just NYC, it's practically everywhere. This is heading to LAX.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...38f6c2ccfa.png

Looks like I'm better off flying American or something to any city and if doing a mileage run, base everything from a hub like SEA or SFO.

100%. AS does not want IAH-SEA-XXX connecting traffic that doesn't represent a logical connection, really, and doesn't price for it to happen. They are very, very happy doing point to point from SEA/PDX/CA and some logical connecting traffic from the PNW/CA. They're not interested in turning their IAH flights into loss leaders for cheap connecting traffic.

You really don't want to fill planes with $99 IAH-SEA-LAX-BOI-PDX-SAN-SFO-EWR traffic if you're AS unless you've done something terribly wrong at demand forecasting and you're desperate for passengers.

AS planes are full. They don't need, nor want, some underpriced flakey connection to build miles and status from Houston to Seattle to New York, So they are likely charging you to go west and then east.

Yeah, AS is a very route dependent airline (I suppose they all are). My west coast to Hawaii flights are great and they generally take good care of me but I've looked at them for other routes I've needed and it can be shocking for sure. The sweet spot for an AS customer actually seems to be California as they seem to always be trying to build business (with cheap fares). Hawaii to/from SAN/SFO/SJC can be crazy cheap at times. To/from PDX I do okay but it can get pricy at times. Mainly, I can choose between a good price or a good time. Flights to Hawaii are super early, flights back are super late or it's ridiculously expensive. Of course, my usage is a very small view of the big picture.