Air Fare Discounts Causing Frustrations : Transportation: Most carriers are offering refunds or credit for pre-sale tickets, but passengers are finding many obstacles.

Many travelers who have tried to reap a windfall by repurchasing airline tickets during the current fare war have faced long delays only to be disappointed.

In the toughest stand, America West Airlines has refused to exchange previously issued tickets at the lower prices. Meanwhile, passengers on Trans World Airlines will realize savings only in the form of vouchers good for future travel. Continental had also been issuing travel vouchers, but said customers will be able to receive cash or credit card refunds beginning today.

America West Airlines issued refunds for one day last week, then changed its policy.

“We have decided that the best thing for America West is to focus on new business,” said Daphne Decino, a spokeswoman for the Phoenix-based carrier, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy court protection last year. “Refunds are not being offered to passengers.”

Most airlines, however, have allowed passengers who purchased tickets before the sale began last week to buy the heavily discounted tickets and receive refunds in the form of cash or a credit on their charge card balance. The 50% discount on summer vacation fares expires Friday.

Many passengers discovered that the airlines would not reissue tickets over the telephone, forcing them to trek to airline offices that were already busy with customers buying new tickets.

During the weekend, long lines and hours-long waits were reported at airport ticket counters and offices across the Los Angeles area. In Pasadena, United Airline customers--one seated in a folding chair--waited in a line that stretched out of the Colorado Boulevard office and onto the sidewalk.

“You just look through the (ticket office) window, and you just want to run away,” said an airline customer outside a crowded United ticket office in downtown Los Angeles on Monday.

The limited number of discounted seats--the supply is constantly changed by the airlines--and the huge demand triggered by the sale means that shopping for a cheap seat has come to resemble “consumer guerrilla warfare,” said Joe Brancatelli, executive editor of Frequent Flyer magazine.

“I would be shocked if there would be a lot of seats left at these prices,” Brancatelli said.

Brancatelli said many travelers could avoid the hassles of waiting at ticket counters and on reservation phone lines by letting their travel agents do the work. But many agents conceded that even they were falling behind serving their regular clients during the crush of new customers asking for help.

“We are getting a lot of customers that have been put on hold by the airlines for hours,” said Dianne LaPorte, vice president of operations at World Travel Bureau, an Orange County-based travel agency. “In some of our leisure-oriented offices, they are doing nothing but reissuing tickets.”

Despite the long delays on reservations lines and ticket officers, many customers were not complaining.

Adam Doban, a 29-year-old police detective, waited an hour at a United Airline ticket counter on Sunday to buy a half-priced, round-trip tickets to Miami for $207. He waited another hour at a United ticket office Monday to change the departure date.

“I called them up to correct it, but I still had to come here,” said Doban outside the United ticket office on 6th Street in downtown Los Angeles. “I’d do it again for this kind of price.”