[noirbot]

I can't really argue with #1 or #2, but I've found that flights in and out of Austin aren't drastically more expensive than elsewhere. Directs to Seattle, SF, LA, NYC, Boston, Atlanta, Miami are all $200-300 round trip, and there's a lot of flights that are just a quick hop to Dallas or Houston and then on to fill in the gaps.

You'll find some weird one-offs - Louisville KY was a $700 round trip last time I checked, for some reason, and there's no way to get to Vancouver that doesn't take like... 8 hours, but in general, I haven't had serious problems.

You also have the advantage of it being a smaller airport, so you can pretty reliably get to the airport with only an hour or so before your flight, since the gate is at most 5 mins from security.