Travel Online

Tourists love Vegas. Even during last year's travel "slowdown," Las Vegas hosted about 35 million visitors. AOL Adviser Regina Lewis visits The Early Show Wednesday to say that you can find some good travel bargains online, and not just for Vegas.

Deals are available to anyone who takes the time to look. The bad news: There's no one site or strategy guaranteed to get you the best airfares or hotel rates. But, if you're willing to fly out of a variety of airports, or leave anytime during the day, you'll have a much better chance of finding cheaper rates.

But Lewis stresses the important of comparison shopping, and there is a new tool out there, she says, that makes it easier.

Sidestep.com scans more than 130 travel sites to dig up deals on airfare, car rentals, hotels and cruises. The really cool thing about Sidestep is that you have the option of downloading it onto your computer (for free) so it will appear side-by-side on your screen with other travel sites such as Orbitz or Expedia. You can easily see which site is offering you the best deal without needing to flip back and forth between two web pages - it's all in front of you.

Sidestep has won a Best of the Web award from Forbes magazine.

A couple of things viewers should know about Sidestep: the site has a strong privacy policy,m so you're not opening yourself up to lots of incoming junk mail and, when you download the software, it shuts down your computer. Don't panic, you haven't broken anything! When you restart, Sidestep will be ready to go.

Once you've run your travel destination through Sidestep, Lewis suggests cross-referencing the results with "the big three" travel sites - Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity. When airlines run Web specials, they are often available only on the carriers' individual Web sites.

However, Orbitz has deals with 40 carriers that allow these Web specials to appear on Orbitz as well. Expedia and Travelocity often feature exclusive specials that are not available anywhere else. All in all, these sites can often negotiate the best deals - particularly on last-minute travel packages.

If you need to find a last-minute deal, check out Site59.com (59 as in the 59th, or last, minute). This site only sells last-minute fares; you can get out of town anywhere from 14 days in advance right up to three hours before. Again, flexibility and perseverance matter.

"Play around with it," advises Lewis. "Treat it like a game and you can really score some significant cash savings -- which will come in real handy if Vegas is your final destination!"