Ok. Apparently I need to explain how the Internet companies work.
Expedia is litterally given the lowest rate guarantee by contract by the hotels they deal with. That is why they give YOU the lowest rate guarantee. If you find a lower rate elsewhere, usually you can talk to Expedia (unless it is Hotels.com because they own the company. They also own a few others but I can't remember all of the names of the companies they own. Though I think Hotwire is one of them) and they will lower your rate (though not always. Expedia has gotten so big and mostly trustworthy that they can usually make demands and people will go with them).
Hotels and the companies that own them have access to these online web sites. Most of them anyway. It's an extranet and the hotels contract with the companies to put their rates and hotels online.
This means that the hotel companies set aside a certain number of rooms to the rooms for the extra net. Unfortunately, sometimes the rooms get sold out before they can be updated by the company for the day.
So, companies like Expedia and Priceline (because they are such large and powerful internet companies) are given priority with room amounts (the number of rooms, not the price).
There is usually, but not always, someone in the hotel companies that ONLY updates the sites throughout the day.
Unfortunately, they don't work all the time and do get time off like the rest of us.
So, the internet companies may actually have in their records, that rooms are available when the extranet just hasn't been updated by the hotel since the hotel ran out.
The internet companies will attempt to include the room in the bookings. Only to find that the extranet has not been updated and the rooms aren't actually available.
Unfortunately you have some companies who are not as large and yet feel the desperate need to compete and make a name for themselves. These companies feel a need to offer rooms at hotels that they may not have a contract with and are not updated by the hotel themself very often.
So, companies like Hotel Kingdom will give rates that they do not have guaranteed. SOMETIMES the rates will work and the rooms will be just fine. They aren't robbers, just not powerful enough to be updated often by the hotels.
Does that make sense? I don't know how I can make it simpler if it doesn't. It took me a long time to understand how reservations sections of companies actually work and its much more complicated than I just explained to you.
If you want to book with Hotel Kingdom then go ahead. But they likely do not have a contract with the hotels and the rates cannot be guaranteed. Where Expedia and Priceline can get guaranteed rates even if, as in the case with Priceline, you do not know what hotel you are going to receive.
