Booking and Expedia and other marketplaces also have a habit of packaging weird short-term rental operations to seem like a hotel. I wound up in a strange city where there was no reception, no lobby, and I later figured out I had failed to confirm my room by not replying to an email that a vendor sent me which I never saw.

There are a few more modern OTAs that rebate a portion of the OTA commission back to you (see Rove, often rebating 15+%) and more that rebate a flat rate (Chase at 8%, Amex at 5%, Cap1 at 10%, etc). The "member pricing" is often 1-2% lower at most, so going through an OTA should get you around 10% off rack rate at minimum, more if commissions are particularly high (hotels pay about 20-30+%, so it's not uncommon to see 20% returns on Rove. Highest I've seen is 50%!).

OTAs can play "member" pricing games too I think so there's even better deals to be had.

So you definitely need to comparison shop, I make my agent take the pricing from all the OTAs and calculate a post-rebate price, then pick the lowest one.