Looking to buy airline tickets online? There are, of course, several good Web sites worth visiting. Millions of tickets are being bought online, but it isn't enough to just stick with the sites you know. You need to comparison shop, just the way you would do in real life. And the Web helps you do that.

A study by the Consumer Reports Travel Letter suggests you need to check out prices on several different sites, instead of relying on just one site, even if its one of the big integrated travel sites (which search across many airlines). The study found that no site does all the airlines and that, surprisingly, "Southwest, the largest low-fare airline in the country, is not listed in any of them."

So when looking for airfares, be sure to do the following:

READ THE FINE PRINT: How many stops do you have to take (OK, that's not usually in fine print, but is easy to miss in some formats)? Is the ticket refundable?

WATCH OUT FOR HIDDEN COSTS: Many of the sites have hidden (and not-so-hidden) handling fees and extra charges. Be sure you know about them.

Here are a few sites worth checking out

Here's a release about the Consumer Reports Travel Letter study

Here's my Feb 2001 stories about airfares

Write to techguru@sree.net and let me know your thoughts.

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