Tip 1 of our stay guide says: find the hotel, then run it through a tool that compares multiple booking sites. We tested four hotels around the world to answer two questions. Do Google Hotels, Trivago and Kayak show different prices? And which booking site ends up cheapest?
Prices are per night and change all the time, so read the pattern, not the exact number.
The comparison tool helps you find offers. The booking site determines what you pay. At first the three tools look very different, but most of the difference comes from taxes and fees: Kayak hides them by default, so it looks cheapest until you switch them on. Compare like-for-like and they mostly agree, Marina Bay Sands came to $705 a night on all three. So start with Google Hotels, which shows the full price up front, then focus on which booking site is cheapest.
The cheapest nightly price each tool showed for the same room and dates, with taxes and fees included. Green = cheapest of the three.
| Hotel |  Google Hotels |  Trivago |  Kayak |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🇸🇬 Marina Bay Sands | $705 | $705 | $705 |
| 🇳🇱 W Amsterdam | $558 | $568 | $580 |
| 🇺🇸 The Cosmopolitan | $283 | $269 | n/aresort fees |
| 🇺🇸 citizenM | $563 | $563 | n/apremium room only |
Kayak shows prices before taxes and fees by default, so it often looks cheaper. Turn taxes on and the prices are usually much closer. We couldn’t get a clean tax-included number for the Cosmopolitan (Las Vegas resort fees muddy every tool) or citizenM (Kayak only had a pricey room left for these dates).
These tools don’t sell rooms. They all send you to the same booking sites, so the price you pay comes from the site, not the tool. If two comparison tools show different prices for the same room, it’s usually because one includes taxes and fees and the other doesn’t.
Once you’ve picked a tool, which site wins? Here’s every site’s nightly rate for each hotel, read off Google Hotels. Green is the cheapest site, amber the most expensive, and the ring marks the hotel’s own direct rate.
Booking direct was almost the cheapest option. The hotel’s own site was just $1 more than Klook and $37 cheaper than Booking.com. The big names sat in the middle, and a reseller you’ve never heard of charged the most.
Booking direct wasn’t the cheapest here. Agoda was $31 cheaper than the hotel’s own site, and Booking.com, Hotels.com and the official rate all charged about the same. (Ignore Priceline’s $944 quote; it was priced for three guests, not two.)
Booking.com, Agoda, Trip.com and Priceline all showed the same $312, while lesser-known sites were about $25 cheaper. Google didn’t show the hotel’s own rate, so check MGM Rewards directly, and remember Las Vegas adds a resort fee at check-in.
Almost every site charged the same price, within $4 of each other, and the hotel’s free member rate matched the cheapest. Billabook wanted $36 more for the same room, and one reseller (Clicktrip) showed $1,196, likely a pricing error, not a deal.
The cheapest booking site for each hotel, what the hotel’s own site wanted, and the nightly gap between the best and worst price.
| Hotel | Cheapest site | Its price | Book direct | Most expensive | You save |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇸🇬 Marina Bay Sands | Klook | $705 | $706 | $788 hutchgo | $83 |
| 🇳🇱 W Amsterdam | Agoda | $558 | $589 | $591 Hotels.com | $33 |
| 🇺🇸 The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas | Evendo | $283 | Not shown | $333 müv AI | $50 |
| 🇺🇸 citizenM New York Times Square | Traveloka | $563 | $563 | $599 Billabook | $36 |
Two obvious outliers are left out: a Priceline quote priced for three guests (W Amsterdam) and a reseller quote of roughly double (citizenM), neither of which is the same booking.