Don't use comparison sites would be my response. More often than not, the hotel's own sites will have better rates. Of course, that's not to say you can't find deals they might not advertise. Check out http://www.smartervegas.com/ for codes and stuff.
I always use http://www.i4vegas.com. The best filtering I've found: by price, value, "stars," location. They feature all promotions and sales. Daily rates and discounts can be shown. They list all resort fees prominently. I've been very pleased with this site and use it almost exclusively, these days.
I agree, you will have a chance to get your rooms comped at the end of your trip if you book with them directly.
Much agreed the only other site outside smarter Vegas I have ever found that gives deals as good as you can book direct is Lasvetions.com where I have booked twice with unpublished specials. Lasventions links directly to the individual hotels site BTW.
http://www.travelaxe.com You can compare the rates at most of the other travel web sites AND those available directly from hotel websites. WARNING! DON'T FORGET TO FACTOR IN ANY RESORT FEES NOT SHOWN BY ANY OF THESE SITES.
I am an Expedia guy, I know some love it and some hate it, I love it. Although I have never booked a room on there, Vegas.com has pretty much ALL the hotels on the left hand side of the screen and prices next to them. Gives you a great idea of differences
The site is messed up.....only the first 2 hotels. The website doesn't allow you to go further. Must be a bug.
Agreed with www.smartervegas.com. Got 30% from there for our trip in a couple weeks. I checked the other 'deal' sites as well because we had booked packages in the past and they all couldn't beat the hotel prices. Most hotels are also offering the whole 'lowest price guaranteed' thing so Orbitz, Expedia, etc can't compete with that. You also have the option to change your reservation if you book it with the hotel directly.
I basically use kayak.com to do my search. it searches many sites (like orbitz, expedia, booking.com, hotels.com, the actual hotel sites, etc.) to find rates. Then you can go from there to the other sites to book your rooms. the only drawback for kayak is that they only list the current rates for hotels. While they sometimes include discount rates I usually go to smartervegas to check out the discount rates. The drawback for smartervegas is that they only list strip properties. I'm a downtown and off strip person so it doesn't help me much. Also, Smartervegas doesn't give you an exact price quote, you have to click on the "book now" to see actual rates so it's kind of a pain if you are trying to quickly see which hotels have the best rates for your time period. I also use kayak to check on airfare and rental cars. Not sure if they got better but I didn't like travelaxe because you had to install their software on your pc. It wasn't as easy to navigate as kayak. IMHO. I've used i4vegas.com, vegas.com, booking.com and hotels.com to research and book rooms in vegas and other cities but lately I've been using kayak as my first choice to do searches. After I find a good rate there I then check with hotels to see if they have better rates. A number of strip hotels will price match if you find a lower rate elsewhere. Always better to book directly as others have said since you could get discounts based on your play. Also, many search sites require you to pay your whole stay upfront, whereas most hotels may only charge the first night prior to your stay. With the non price matching hotels there is no guarantee that the hotel has the lowest rates all the time so best to do your homework and do searches to find the best rates. Also note that many of the search sites do not include resort fees so make sure you check on the hotel's site before you book to see if there are added resort fees. A number of hotels use the resort fee tactic to make it appear their rates are lower than other hotels.
Worked fine for me http://www.a-domain-that-keeps-spamming-us.com/ LOL unless you try to put a link to the home page in a post it seems.