guess he didn't check into his flight 24 hrs earlier otherwise he would have known this. while it is 1/3 of the vacation, how much did he really lose if he didn't see the city in 2 days vs 3 days?
and, he did buy 2 one way fares as you indicate, which i'm assuming was because of price, so why isn't price/$ an issue now?
this entire thing doesn't really make sense.