Almost always, if you walk up to the front desk and ask for a room, the price is 15-20% more than what you see online at that very moment.
This is baffling, and has to be coming from some convoluted agreement.
The hotel makes a lower amount if I book through priceline or expedia or whatever.
It could also be fingerprinting. Maybe you've been sorted into the "starving hacker" advertising bucket so you get a discount from the "totally unknown customer" bucket the front desk is forced to put you into.
The hotels hate expedia but they can't opt out of it so they just degrade the product that is offered at expedia's discount rate -- and they degrade it in a way that expedia can't force them to stop (room assignment is always done at checkin).
My work travel is typically booked through perk.com and I don't get the sense that I'm treated resentfully at any of those properties.
When you book through expedia, you pay expedia and expedia pays the hotel.
and I don't get the sense that I'm treated resentfully at any of those properties.
Depends how full the hotel is (expected to be that night) and whether you have status with that hotel. When I used to use discount booking services it was always first floor facing the parking lot.