Sorting Through the Recent Air Fare Changes : Airlines: New domestic rules were designed to simplify the system, lower seat prices and ease restrictions on non-refundable tickets.

The painful sting attached to many non-refundable airline tickets has been all but eliminated in the new domestic fare structures announced within the past three weeks by most major U.S. airlines.

Along with lower fares, the easing of the non-refundable rules should be a welcome boon.

Designed to simplify the nation’s complex fare system, the new arrangement seems nevertheless to have confused some travelers and even airline reservations clerks.

Basically, the move has substantially cut the cost of first-class and unrestricted coach fares most frequently used by business travelers; trimmed most leisure fares, although not by as much, and made it easier for leisure travelers to change lower-priced, non-refundable tickets.

As of press time, American, which introduced the changes, had been followed by United, Delta, Northwest, USAir and Continental in adopting the system. So far, TWA has not joined and probably won’t.

The new structure provides for four basic fare categories: first-class, unrestricted coach, seven-day advance purchase (non-refundable) and 21-day advance purchase (non-refundable). But some airlines have variations. American, for example, announced last week that it was changing its 21-day advance-purchase category to 14 days.

In all the hoopla over lower fares, the easing of restrictions on non-refundable tickets seems to have been overlooked. But there has been a very basic change in these tickets, making them much more flexible to use.

Until last week, passengers purchasing a non-refundable ticket tended to be locked into their trip. If they wanted to cancel or change their departure or return dates, they faced penalties that ranged up to a full 100% of the ticket cost. Most of these restrictions have been abolished.

Now travelers taking advantage of non-refundable tickets’ cheaper fares can change tickets with relative ease for just $25, a nominal administrative fee. For this fee, entirely new departure and return dates can be booked, which comes in handy if a trip must be postponed.

But in addition, and this is a big plus, travelers can apply the value of their unused ticket toward a new ticket. If they so choose, they can go to an entirely different destination.

As an example, take the case of a couple who books a non-refundable ticket to San Francisco to attend a convention. At the last minute they can’t make the trip and have no reason to fly to San Francisco at a later date. They can’t get a refund, but they do get full credit (less the $25 fee) for the price they paid for tickets to an alternate destination of their choice.

The only stipulations, as American Airlines spells out in its rules, is that the traveler must meet the applicable advance-purchase and length-of-stay requirements for the new destination. The non-refundable tickets still require a Saturday-night stay and must be purchased within 24 hours of making a reservation.

American anticipates that by lowering the penalty to $25, the airline will eliminate the hassle faced by some passengers of getting a doctor’s note if they became ill and canceled a non-refundable ticket, according to spokeswoman Lise Olson. Paying the $25 fee to change dates or itinerary might be simpler for most travelers.

In introducing its new four-tier fare structure April 9, American eliminated a variety of ticket categories, including such advance-purchase options as 14-day and 30-day tickets. However, TWA is still offering 14-day and 30-day fares--some of them cheaper than the 21-day tickets other airlines are selling--and USAir has retained some 14-day fares in markets in which it competes directly with TWA.

On the surface, at least, most of the new fares appear to be cheaper than those previously available. American said it was cutting its first-class fares by 20%-50% and its unrestricted coach fares by 38%, and United announced that it was trimming its seven-day advance-purchase fares by 30% and its 21-day fares by 20%.

As early as four days after the announcement, many travelers who had already bought tickets at higher fares were turning them in for refunds on the difference between the old and new fares. I got a $39 refund on an already-discounted $438 round-trip ticket between Washington and San Francisco that I had purchased earlier.

American planned its new fare structure months in advance, and its competition is now scrambling to catch up. Just last week, several carriers--including TWA, America West and USAir--attempted to undercut American’s new fare structure by lowering prices and easing some restrictions. Striking back, American then temporarily slashed its prices again. Stay tuned.

Most of the airlines have been announcing their new policies in full-page ads in daily newspapers. For a while, it could be helpful to clip them as a way to compare.

Besides making it easier to change non-refundable tickets when plans change, the dramatic new shift in the way U.S. airlines are marketing their tickets has other ramifications for both business and leisure travelers:

--Business travelers who cannot take advantage of discounted tickets because of their restrictions should benefit greatly from the 20%-50% price cut on unrestricted fares.

--For the first time, American and other airlines have imposed a $25 fee for itinerary changes on first-class and unrestricted coach-class tickets. In the past, no such fee was charged. A traveler delayed at a business meeting, for example, could catch a later flight at no extra charge. But the fee is applied if the traveler decides to add another city to the itinerary.

--Some airlines have eliminated special discounts previously granted to students, seniors and the military. They also have dropped so-called bereavement fares offered to travelers forced to fly at the last minute because of a serious illness or death in the family. In the past, American gave seniors a 10% discount on fares, which has been eliminated, but the airline will continue to sell its senior-citizen booklets, which contain coupons for reduced-fare tickets. Continental and USAir are still studying how they will handle similar special discounts.

--Although the impetus for the new system was the desire to simplify, travelers can still expect to see off-price sales of tickets during slack seasons. The structure won’t change, says Olson, but the fares will.

--American plans to stop offering special off-price, negotiated rates to large corporate customers, says Olson, because its new unrestricted coach fares are lower than the negotiated rates. But TWA, which has not adopted the fare structure, plans to make a big pitch for corporate travelers through negotiated fares, says spokesman Don Fleming.

--Because of the new lower, unrestricted coach fares, fewer travelers are expected to resort to unusual booking ploys to reduce ticket cost. Under former pricing policies, unrestricted coach fares were so inflated that they all but invited travelers to use tricky strategies to avoid paying them. One ploy was back-to-back ticketing, a tactic used by some passengers to qualify for an advance-purchase ticket without staying over a Saturday night. Two discounted round-trip tickets had to be purchased, but the price often was still half the unrestricted fare.