If you search for a hotel online, the first choices thrust at you are going to be 3rd party booking sites. They will tempt you with their low prices, and, supposedly, ease of booking.
The truth is these, and others like Viator, Hotels(dot)com are parasites on the travel industry and every vendor—hotel, restaurant, tour company—hates them with burning heat of 10,000 suns and a slice of extra cheese pizza left in the microwave too long. The reason is these companies take a huge percentage of the booking fee, and do nothing productive afterward. They have terrible service should something go wrong with your booking. They are good for research, but that is it. After finding what you want, always book directly. You will get better service, and in the case of hotels, a better price.
When you find a room on one of these bloodsucker sites, call the hotel directly and ask them to match it. Not only will they match it, they will often give you an even bigger discount.
Hotels put rooms on these sites because any room they don’t sell is lost revenue. They’d rather sell it at a discount rather than nothing at all. But the parasite sites take a huge bite of the booking fee, from 15-30%. If a hotel can book directly, they don’t have to pay that fee.
For example, say the usual rate for a hotel is $250, and they have booked some rooms for that price, but there are a lot left over. They will release those room to Expedia and other sites, where they might list it for $210. Once you find out the price, if you call the hotel directly, and ask them to match the Expedia price, they will, and probably less if you ask. That’s because if you book the room through Expedia, using the example above, the bloodsucker company could take $35-65, leaving the hotel with $175-$145 profit. If they sell the room directly to you for $180, they keep it all. The hotel makes more money, you get a bigger discount, and Expedia gets nothing. Everybody wins. Except Expedia, and who the hell cares what happens to the blooksuckers?
I recently did the above when booking a hotel in New York for later this year. I got a substantial discount below what Expedia wanted to charge. I did have to agree to the rooms being non-refundable, but that was worth the significant price cut. I bought $39 travel insurance that will cover the cost of the hotel should I have to cancel. “Have to” is the qualification. There needs to be an unforeseeable event for why you cancel, you can’t just change your mind.
Perhaps the best reason for booking directly is that the money goes the vendor. For many small business, such as tour companies, it makes a big difference. Good Karma will be on your side. And these days we all need every bit of luck we can get.