I think they only do this in the US...sugar is a foreign product and corn is subsidized, making the latter half the price of the former. That's not the case where I live and I've been back to drinking my sugary and corn-syrup free cokes for 6 years since moving here from the US.
You're my hero. $500 gets you to London from Tel Aviv. If you're lucky. That's why most of my vacations are in Sinai.
If you like the taste of cola made with real sugar, try Grown-Up Soda. http://drinkgus.com/ I love this stuff. Very refreshing, doesn't make you feel like crap. Not super sweet and reasonable amount of calories.
Mexican coke. That is all. You can never go wrong with a mexican coke. And Dublin Dr. Pepper are really good too.
So could I simply get off in London, and catch a return flight there going back to Houston on the same airline? That sort of thing was possible in the past. If so, that fare would blow away any round trip flight from Houston to London that I've seen. Get to London, and you can Eurail Pass your way to damn near anywhere in Europe.
I remember when I worked a contract for Sabre back around 1998, people were flying to Spain from Dallas for $50 round trip. LOL. People would fly to see a Broadway show from DFW on a whim because it was so cheap. A co-worker used to fly to New Orleans for something like $6-$9 damn-near every other week. I think those days at Sabre are long-gone now. :grin: