HikerTom wrote:
This topic always comes up, the short answer is that this is normal practice among the airlines. I forget the full explanation, but if an airline is the only one flying direct to an international destination from one of its hubs, people connecting through that hub pay less (usually much less) than those flying direct from the hub.
So you guys who live in places like Dallas, Houston and Atlanta, you just have to bend over and take it.

There is another option. There are three options to book a ticket, One-Way, Round-Trip, and Multi-City. The person living in the hub city can book their return leg of their ticket to anywhere that has the cheapest ticket price and simply exit the plane in the hub city, where they live, not taking the final leg. This will only work with carry on baggage.
I've done this about 10 times returning to ATL from SJO.