This real incident happened a couple of years back during my hay days of flying. Those were the days when the time span between the thought of having a vacation to being on a plane was as short as 3 hours!!
Anyways, Maddy and I decided one fine evening that we would go to Houston the next morning to apply for a Schengen visa. The number of flights between Dallas and Houston are more frequent than the number of times my BlackBerry beeps for a new email. So, we decided to fly and we paid only $90 pp to get to Houston Hobby (the smaller airport in Houston). We got done with our work at the embassy and then we came back to Hobby.
The ticket counter had Halloween decor - pumpkins and ghosts and what not. The ticket agent was wearing a lanyard which read 'Happy Halloween', 'Trick or Treat?', etc. I was tempted to say 'Why dont you treat us to a free flight to Dallas?'. There were 2 seats left on the next flight out of Hobby and the ticket price was around $250 pp. The flight after that was sold out. Needless to say, we were only exploring the options on American Airlines. But, after all those days of flying, your first instinct is to bend the system. A few minutes later after thinking 'out of the pumpkin', I asked the ticket agent 'Are we allowed to buy a ticket going out of Houston International Airport and fly standby out of Hobby?'. Mind you, we were already in Houston Hobby. I got a very dirty stare (which still haunts me in my dreams sometimes) but she had to tell the truth "Technically, yes". She checked the fare and the ticket price out of Houston International was still $90 pp.
I waited till she printed out the boarding passes while shaking her head in disbelief. Then, I told her "You wanted a trick. I gave you one". She responsed, rather friendly (so I like to think), "Now, get out of here and dont cause any more trouble!"
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