Prepaying for Airline Seats Can Help Save Time : Tickets: Process makes it convenient for the recipient, who is usually in another city. But buyers should beware of a non-refundable fee in the price.

Prepaid airline tickets--that is, tickets purchased through a travel agency or an airline for use by another person, usually in another city--can be especially helpful when a traveler is short on time and arrangements must be made quickly.

Here’s how it works: Let’s say you want to buy a ticket for a friend in Paris to come visit you in Los Angeles. You call the airline, make all the arrangements--including payment via credit card--and then call your friend, who only has to pick up the ticket from an airline city ticket office or when he or she arrives at the Paris airport.

The purchaser gets a receipt with a prepaid ticket number that lists the traveler’s name, itinerary, form of payment and the purchaser’s name. The prepaid number should then be relayed to the recipient in case there’s any problem at his or her end.

Sounds simple enough, right? Maybe, but consumers should also understand that there is a rather hefty non-refundable administrative fee of $25 charged by most airlines to issue a prepaid airline ticket, known in the industry as a “PTA”--prepaid ticket advice. Actually, fees do vary some. Lufthansa, for example, charges $20 per prepaid tickets, while Japan Air Lines doesn’t impose any fee.

“The best time to use prepaid tickets is when there’s an emergency, a 24-hour situation,” said Martha Scott of Glendale Travel. “Somebody may have to fly immediately and you can’t get them tickets any other way. Otherwise, it’s usually better and less expensive to just buy the tickets and send them by overnight delivery or certified mail.

“If you’re concerned about sending the actual ticket and having it cashed in, ask the airline or travel agent to state on the ticket that it’s refundable at the issuing office only.”

In that case, tickets would be marked “PTA.” “This signals to the ticket agent that refunds should only be made to the purchaser and not the passenger,” said Agnes Huff, a spokeswoman for USAir.

There is at least one other risk to consumers involving prepaid tickets.

According to Chuck Wolff, director of audit and fraud prevention for the Washington-based Airlines Reporting Corp., which handles travel agency accreditation for the airlines, the airline industry lost about $2 million in 1990-91 in prepaid ticket fraud.

“The PTA is one of the most abusable documents that the ARC has, and while airlines and travel agencies are the primary victims, consumers need to beware as well,” Wolff said.

In one scenario, a scam artist posing as a representative of the ARC calls a travel agency, says that the computers are down and asks for the agency’s PTA serial numbers. The scam artist then calls an airline and requests prepaid tickets to be issued against those numbers. After the scam artist or an accomplice picks up the ticket, the same ticket might end up being sold again on the street.

“Some of these prepaid tickets may be sold to unwitting consumers,” said Wolff. “The telltale sign for consumers, which is true of other invalid tickets as well, is when someone else’s name is on the ticket.

“Prepaid tickets are a viable and useful procedure, but know who you’re dealing with.”

In general, travelers who buy noticeably cheap tickets sold as bargains from “questionable” sources run the risk of losing their money if the ticket is discovered to be invalid. For example, an unknowing person buying a ticket obtained through a prepaid ticket scam might not learn until they are at the airport that the ticket isn’t valid. Would-be travelers could then be denied transportation, be out the money they paid for the bogus ticket and be forced to buy a new ticket--at a regular, not discounted, fare--if they still need to catch that flight.

One misconception that consumers have about prepaid tickets is that once the purchase has been made, the person receiving the ticket has met all of his or her obligations. Not necessarily so.

“The prepaid ticket is strictly a transfer of money,” Scott said. “The ticket hasn’t actually been issued and won’t be issued until the receiver shows up to get it. However, the entire ticket is paid for, including all taxes if it’s a domestic ticket, so the passenger has no sudden extra costs at the airport. With some international flights, however, there may be a local departure tax that isn’t included in the ticket and this would have to be paid by the passenger.”

Advance-purchase fares aren’t used too often in connection with prepaid tickets since there’s usually sufficient time with a normal 21-day program to send the tickets by other means. If an advance-purchase ticket is involved, make sure that you alert the passenger to any possible restrictions--such as by what time the ticket must be issued in the city of departure. Some airlines require advance-purchase tickets to be picked up prior to the day of departure.

“Our policy is to phone the passenger and advise them that we have a prepaid ticket ready and the options, which include picking up the ticket at the airport, a city ticket office or even having it mailed to them if time permits,” said Joe Zucker, a Lufthansa spokesman.

Any passenger awaiting a prepaid ticket can call the airline and ask if the ticket is available and the location of the nearest city ticket office, if they wish to pick the ticket up there.