Things That Drive Me Nutso

I just spent an hour on the phone with a friend, trying to coordinate flights. We're going to Italy together, but she lives in a different state, so we're trying to find a way that she and I can both be on the same overseas portion, and still not pay an arm and a leg.

The best I was able to find for me is an American Airlines flight from National Airport in DC (yay for finding a cheap flight from the airport 10 minutes from my house!) to JFK in NY, then a direct flight to Rome. She's coming from West Virginia, however, so either she will drive to one of the DC airports to meet me, or find a way to get herself to NY to meet me, or whatever (she does a lot of business in NY, so that could actually work the best).

So it would stand to reason that her flight out of JFK would likely be less than mine, since I have a hop from DC to JFK first, right?

Wrong. Her direct non-stop flight from JFK to Rome is $100 more than my two part flight (DC to JFK, then JFK to Rome on the same flight as her).

In other words, it's cheaper for me to take an extra flight first.

That seems screwed up. When you factor in the cost of gas, why would they be giving me that DC-to-JFK (and vice versa on the way home) flight for free? Actually, they're giving it to me for negative money, really. They're paying me.

I hate airlines. The pricing makes no sense.

So what about you? What totally screwed up things drive you crazy?