What I am referring to here is hidden city tickets. Ie I bought tickets on AA for IAH-DFW-IND which were cheaper than DFW-IND by itself. Now we are actually in IAH so I'm not doing hidden city, but I'm trying to think of any industry where you pay more for less. Not more per unit, but just more for the total cost. For instance do you ever see a liter of coke cost more than a 2 liter. Ever buy a two day ticket which cost less than a 1 day at the same place. I suppose there may be a few examples during special sales. However I don't think anybody has tried to argue damages, if you don't come back for the second day of the two day six flags pass.

I was thinking of this question in terms of damages. Normally damages are assessed by putting the non breaching party in the position that they would have been in had the breach not occurred. If I get off the return flight in DFW, I assert that AA has no damages because had I lived up to the contract, they would be in the exact same position. In fact they would be slightly worse had I fulfilled the contract due to extra fuel for my weight, peanuts, soda and possibility of overbooking. Now I understand AA's argument that had I purchased the proper contract (return to DFW), then they would have received more money. I think that the reason AA's calculation is not the normal estimate of damages (expectancy) is that is is basically unheard of to charge more for the exact same services minus a couple benefits.

I guess perhaps one example would be a Pizza special. Say a pizza is normally 10 bucks and pitcher of soda is $2 and tap water is free. On tuesday there is pizza/pitcher special of $9. I come on tuesday and have pizza and water. I refuse to pay. In court are damages 9 or 10? I'd argue that it should be 9, but I could see 10. But that is because you could say I didn't enter into the pizza special contract because I didn't ask for soda. However the AA equivilant is me asking for pizza, soda, and water. Then throwing the soda in the garbage. In that case, I'd say damages are clearly 9.