I just returned from a 2+ week road trip out west.  I prefer to book rooms at hotels/motels directly with them in the event I have to change reservations.  This time for 2 locations I had to book with a travel company, and had to change my reservations with both of those locations.  Dealing with those companies was a pain.  Hotelsone.com  sucked and expedia.com really sucked.

My next trip leaving on 7 June is with the place where I'm staying, thank goodness.

Everyone should have a friend who is a successful travel agent.

Could try Booking.com

After a bad experience we had with Booking.com last year, going/contacting the hotels directly just so much simpler...so far.

going through a third party to book a few nights in a few cities for convenience
is the opposite of that.

If your dates aren't flexible, never use 3rd parties to book hotels and flights. Expedia fucked us over pretty big one year and we avoid them (and all the others) like the plague if we can help it. The worst thing is that if you book through a third party and then there's an emergency, the hotel or airline wont help you, if you don't book directly through them then you're not their problem at all and they've washed their hands of you completely. Maybe you've got time to go try and battle it out with some hotline operator, but probably not, and you're going to wind up paying the full prices for your new accommodations direct from the hotel/airline anyway so you might as well have just done that in the first place and collected the points or something.

calling hotels and motels directly will usually get you the same prices - if you ask. look online on their sites and on the booking sites. then call them direct. talking on phone will get better bargains practically all the time.

I always book rooms myself.

As a travel agent I got used to booking direct with Marriott because they gave us good deals.

After leaving the US and returning to the UK I had no travel agent ID any more.  For about a week I bounced between hotels and used priceline until they decided I had to provide them with ID(passport/drivers licence) before they would confirm any reservation for me.  The email came from one of their subsidiaries so I ignored it as an attempted phishing scam.

Got to the hotel and no res.  As it was lateish I got a room anyway but am glad they never confirmed my room as the reservation was for 2 nights and the hotel was a dump so I only stayed 1 night.

Now I will not use any 3rd party booking site.  I'd rather pay that little bit more for the room.