I'm paying $323 for a flight to Laguardia airport for a silly disc golf tournament in July, and have a dilemma about another flight in August.  Either I pay $244 for a ticket flying into Laguardia, then fly back out in September, or I use my gf's voucher for a free airline ticket.  Pros for paying: I get frequent loser miles through American Airlines.  Pros for not paying: it's free.  So my question is this: Do I hijack a plane and try to fly it myself or possibly pay someone else to fly it for me?

Herbertrude

Wow, before I even touch on this continental conundrum, let me first compliment you on your excessive use of colons.  You have a colon to sentence ratio of nearly 1:1.  That has not been seen since the days of Professor Vincent DuButtocks' infamous lecture series, "Colonoscopy: How to Create Positive Pauses: A Grammatical Foray into Stacked Periods"  Well done, Herbertrude.

Because of the exorbitant price of gasoline nowadays, people are turning to the skies so they can pretend that the high prices for airline tickets aren't going to pay for gasoline to fuel the planes.  It's a clever trick that has caused a boom in commercial aviation.  But what really is the best way to go about it?  In order to find the absolute cheapest tickets, as it looks like you have already tried, online shopping is the way to go.  Most people use Priceline.com or Orbitz or one of those.  I've never particularly been a fan.  I shop online at www.esoderek.com, personally.  While it may not have the greatest selection of airline tickets (currently, there are zero), it does have the greatest assortment of Derek's albums and blindingly low prices. 

But blatant plug aside, let's tackle this flight issue.  Hijacking is NOT the way to go; it is SO 1900's.  We are in a new millennium, where hijacking has, for some reason, earned a negative reputation among airline companies.  In fact, with airport security being at a supposed all-time high, hijacking simply isn't even practical.  The better solution to avoid hefty fees is to get a long bungee cord.  I would suggest at least 1000' feet.  You're going to want to attach it to the plane you want to be on WITHOUT ANYONE SEEING YOU.  This is very important.  Then take the other end of the bungee cord and attach it to your belt (you may want to reinforce the belt with a solid titanium plate first).  Hide somewhere inconspicuous.  I would suggest in the flight attendant lounge or Toledo (assuming Toledo is less than 1000' feet from your airplane).  When the plane takes off, you may feel a gentle tug on your bungee cord.  This is expected.  Once you are airborn, provided your neck hasn't snapped and you still have at least partial use of your limbs, simply pull yourself up to the plane.  Here's where it gets intense - you're going to be losing air pretty quickly as the plane ascends.  So you must move QUICKLY to get into the plane without making any holes in the exterior of the plane, as that would just look sloppy, and I'll even assume it would cause some cabin-pressure issues.  I would suggest the following, and bear with me, as the logic gets a little tricky.
Hide out on the wing of the plane.  Make sure there's an unassuming man near the window who might curiously look out at you once in a while (if you're lucky, it will be a cast member of any Star Trek).  When he looks at you once, hide on the underside of the wing.  Then periodically pop back out and give him creepy looks, hiding after each one.  Ultimately, it will be determined that you are not real, and that you are simply all in that man's head.  Great!  You're in his head.  His head, you'll remember, is already in the plane.  So then just get OUT of his head and take one of the free seats.  Ask for peanuts, because likely you'll be quite hungry after this.

Unlike past questions, I have no other solutions.  This is the easiest way to get a free ride on an airplane.  I wish you good luck on your Colon Tour: 2006.  Until next time, this is Fats saying "There'd be a whole lot more of these if more people wanted advice." 


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