Originally Posted by
oavcech
If I book them separately it will cost me a lot more.
If I did happen to travel and they cancel my trip my only excuse would be that I had to stay at Houston for medical reasons (my actual trip is for medical reasons) and that I had a flight with another airline from L.A. to Houston but lost it.
Which is still a violation of the fare rules and may or may not elicit the sympathy you're seeking.
Another way of trying it is insisting you flew to LAX and acting like they're crazy.
But with the distance between IAH and LAX, it seems quite suspect and may raise an eyebrow or two, as people don't typically drive between LAX and IAH.
Have you looked at flying MEX-IAH-LAX-IAH? That may be cheaper than MEX-IAH.
There are other markets with cheap MEX fares as well (SFO, SMF, etc. can often be inexpensive). If you have the time, you may want to combine something that works for you price-wise and adds a bunch of miles.