What you think may not be so; what you hear may not be available; and what may appear the same may be wildly variable - three things to remember about low air fares.

First, don't make the assumption that buying on the internet is the least expensive; and this goes for airline tickets, hotels, car rentals or just about anything. A listener e-mailed us that she wanted to get three round trip tickets from Pensacola to Bozeman and the lowest price she could find on the airline and various discount websites was over $500 appiece. She said she was frustrated because "we have seen tickets from $328 to $365 . . . but when we try to buy, we are told 'unavailable.'" I checked the published price, available by calling the airlines directly or by calling any travel agent, and the cost was only $255 per ticket with a 14-day advance purchase on either Delta or Northwest Airlines. Again, don't assume that buying online gets tickets at the lowest price. Second, don't presume that just because you hear of a low air fare you can actually purchase tickets for that price. For example, Aloha Airlines has announced round trip service from Burbank to Honolulu starting June 1, 2002. As an introduction to this new schedule, they've announced some eye-popping fares for the month of June, starting at just $190 (yes, round trip!). But everyone of the allocated $190 tickets for the entire month was sold several weeks ago. The next cheapest fare is $395.15. And the fares go on up to $2240.97 (there are actually a total of eight different prices for coach tickets). And that brings me to a third possible false assumption: that everyone in the coach section is paying the same price for tickets! As an example, I checked United Airlines for the cost of round trip tickets from Salt Lake to Chicago. There were 17 different published coach fares, ranging from $250 up to $1427, depending on various conditions and restrictions.

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