Larry's columns appear on CBSNews.com and are available for syndication to newspapers and other websites

AOL Enters Travel Comparison Shopping Business

American Online has just launched a beta test version of a travel comparison shopping service. The site, www.pinpointtravel.com automatically searches over 50 sites and internal travel company databases to find you the lowest fare or least expensive hotel room.

AOL is not the first to offer such a service. Mobissimo.com has been doing this for several months.

Unlike travel websites such as Expedia or Travelocity, these services don't sell you travel. Instead, the crawl the web looking for deals from other companies and link you directly to those companies. AOL and Mobissimo make their money from commissions and advertising.

The AOL service, which is still in beta-test form, is a little slow but it was able to get me some pretty good deals. Of course, I could have found those myself by going to multiple websites, but this saved a considerable amount of time.

I still recommend you do some shopping around in addition to using these sites as you may still be able to find better deals on  your own.