Money-Saving Tricks Range From the Questionable to the Legit : Living near a major airport such as LAX means opportunities for inexpensive extra trips, especially if they involve full-fare travel.

Living near Los Angeles International Airport, a regional hub as well as an international gateway, creates chances for offbeat ticketing opportunities--especially for those flying first or business class.

To help sort out the options, Terry Trippler publishes a California edition of Airfare Report, a Minneapolis-based newsletter that keeps track of airline tariff rules and changes. As the airlines juggle and rejuggle their rules and fare structures, Trippler keeps up, looking for opportunities and loopholes.

The winter air fare sales announced Wednesday, for example, generally allow a passenger buying a ticket with a departure from Cincinnati, New York or another Eastern city to stop over in Los Angeles, Ontario or San Diego for a small fee. Trippler points out that a Southern California resident who plans a midweek business trip in the East this winter could add a Hawaii trip afterward and pay less than the usual business fare.

How could that be?

Trippler says a one-way midweek coach fare between LAX and New York is $741. And an “open jaw” routing on a winter sale ticket from New York via LAX (with a layover at home in Los Angeles) to Hawaii, then back to Los Angeles is $527.39. Thus a passenger buying these tickets would pay $213.61 less than the usual midweek LAX to New York round-trip business fare of $1,482. The passenger would have to follow the rules of the sale fare--seven-day advance purchase, three-day minimum stay in Hawaii and complete all travel in 30 days.

Trippler says there are other variations, including the ability to complete the travel in 60 days, that might cost a little more but still be attractive to someone wanting to go to Hawaii after the business trip.

Some of these kinds of techniques are ethically questionable from the airlines’ point of view (see accompanying article), but others are clearly within the rules. Particularly useful at LAX--and to a lesser extent at other regional airports--are the free stopovers.

Deeply discounted advance-purchase tickets rarely allow stopovers. But for passengers already paying higher prices for their tickets, it can be worth adding some segments between “stopover visits” at home when the extra cost is reasonable.

In the simplest form, international airlines serving LAX sometimes fly connecting first-class passengers from other U.S. cities to LAX for a reasonable surcharge--often less than $200--and allow a free stopover.

A Southern Californian who frequently travels to Wichita, Kans., for example, who also plans to fly first class to Asia could use this policy to add inexpensive first- or business-class flight segments between Wichita and LAX.

For example, the traveler would book the Asia flight beginning in Wichita at a time when he or she was in Wichita anyway. The first leg of the Asia ticket would be back to the traveler’s home in Southern California. Then, a few weeks later, he or she takes the round trip to Asia and back home. In some cases, the traveler could continue on to Witchita a few weeks later still--in first class.

This scenario requires the passenger to purchase a ticket to Wichita separately at either end, possibly a round-trip LAX-Wichita ticket to start and finish it, but the overall arrangement is often well worth it.

A similar principle applies to Europe. In November, Trippler reports, a round-trip coach fare from Anchorage to Frankfurt, Germany, with a stopover in Los Angeles costs only $198.41 more than flying from LAX alone to Frankfurt. Of course to take advantage of this a traveler would have to be in Anchorage.

In another twist, occasionally airlines flying from the Midwest to Mexico or South America will allow free stopovers in Los Angeles.

Many of these tickets are fully refundable if changes need to be made, Trippler points out. He suggests that travelers tell their travel agents where they may be traveling in the future whenever planning a major trip, just to see if booking additional segments as part of the flight would be advantageous.

The key, he says, is not to know when you will be traveling, just if you will be and to where.

Information about Trippler’s Airfare Report is available at (800) 218-9441.