Has anyone gotten lucky to have a mid-level room suddenly become available?

Edward, what are you using to do your searches, and what constitutes a "mid-level" room for you. And what are your dates for each place?

I hope you are contacting the hotel directly. Sometimes they hold back rooms from 3rd part sellers

It is possible that rooms are being "hoarded", so I would check directly with the Hotel from time to time, or let them know what you are looking for, leaving an email address. Will they contact you? Probably not if there is quite a bit of activity in booking, but if things are slow, then yeah, they will notify you. Booking sites (Hotels.com, Bookings.com, etc.) can be great for finding deals, but I will usually look at the Hotels website or contact them before I make a choice.

I will rant though about the general practice of people making multiple reservations for the same city and then only later deciding which ones to cancel as they make their plans. It is inconsiderate to the Hotel Owner, especially small Hotels, and to other travelers as well. Legitimate changes in plans also come up that can prompt a cancellation, but some have related how they reserved three different rooms in a city that also overlapped with rooms booked in another city since they were not sure what area they wanted to stay or for how long.

When is your trip? I know you mentioned "4 months out" but I'm wondering if you've bee looking for a couple of weeks and your trip is in August. If so, you are not only competing with American and Asian travelers, but also with European travelers who normally vacation in August.

I also wonder if you are looking for hotels in the heart of each of those locations. That may be why you are finding them full. As others have mentioned, direct contact with the hotels may help if you haven't done so before.

I wouldn't go expecting an upgrade. I see you have traveled to Paris doing your own planning and that it went well. I hope this trip is another positive experience for you.

How narrow or wide is your search for "mid-level" rooms, depending on how you define "mid-level"? There is a wide inventory of rooms out there, don't limit yourself to guidebooks or direct booking with hotels or small mom and pops (unless you prefer those of course). I book online using booking.com most of the time so I would never hear back from any live person regarding a random room that "just opened up". I think most people who work in hotels would be too busy to notify you anyway, given the demand for rooms during peak season is pretty high.

so by "mid-level" are you meaning if a hotel has three levels of rooms, such as standard, superior and deluxe you want to have superior but you can only get a standard or deluxe and that isn't what you want? And that's at all the hotels you have checked?

My experience is that normally standard rooms go first and then superior, sometimes only leaving the deluxe rooms, not the middle level selling first.

I also thought you'd pretty much decided on Palazzo Alfieri Residenza D'Epoca in Florence. No?

Need an explanation. Have not seen that phrase - mid level room - used in conjunction with Italian hotels. What exactly are you describing or expecting?

Thanks for the replies.

I am booked for the Pallazzo Alfieri in Florence, Sept 20 thru Sept 24 and leave the 25th. That is one of the hotels where we could not get a mid- level room so...we splurged because we want to be near the river and like contemporary settings and got the suite. It looks fabulous.

Mid-level is as described by Nigel – standard, superior, deluxe

I do book directly with the hotels. Why does anyone book with a third party?

Thanks for checking and noting our Paris trip went extremely well. You cannot buy the weather we had. And we loved Uber prices! The heck with metros and buses. We spent about $190 on uber and felt like kings. But Italy does not have Uber.

I am searching on trip advisor, hotels.com and booking.com? – can’t recall it at the moment.

We faced the same situation in Sienna at the Palazzo Ravizza recommended by Rick. No superior room. This time we picked standard. No superior was available. But we loved the garden terrace view!

We do like to stay in central locations and want to make things as easy as possible. We are late to traveling – 60s – so a bit of a splurge is ok.

Why does anyone book with a third party?

Because hotels sell a portion of their room stock for less via third party channels (this is to ensure they sell out their rooms instead of leaving money on the table). They reserve their regular rates and some discounts on their websites. I do side-by-side comparisons every time I book and that's why I don't book directly with hotels. On the (rare) occasions that their rates are better by booking direct, then I'll book with them directly. I'm not picky about the room so I'm fine booking with a third party for less. I also book with third parties because they display hotel reviews (not only cherry picked ones), they make comparison shopping easy, I can mostly pay with a credit card, and they provide automatic confirmation. Everyone has their own preference but I'm perfectly OK with booking on third party sites.

We do like to stay in central locations and want to make things as easy as possible. We are late to traveling – 60s – so a bit of a splurge is ok.

Better late than never! We are in our 60s as well and we have upped our traveling tempo in the last few years. We have been fortunate that in addition to personal travel, work has taken us on some adventures.

Have a great time in Italy and be sure to report back!

"I do book directly with the hotels. Why does anyone book with a third party?"

I do both for the fact that sometimes booking with a hotel will be cheaper or include some type of benefit (free perk like breakfast, later check out if booking with them directly) ; other times rates are actually higher booking directly and/or have worse cancellation type policies so best to look into both if you identify a place you like.
If all is equal I would opt for a 3rd party to get other benefits from multiple bookings with them such as booking.com or hotels.com who both have "reward" type programs.
Without a doubt the method of cancelling if a listing has a cancellable policy will be easier on the 3rd party site.

A good idea to email them asking if any rooms may be available BUT expecting them to notify you a week later when one gets cancelled is definitely dreaming.
Hotels do block off certain days and room types to be released later so that could happen but requires timing/luck they are not going to disclose this to you.

Have had things like that happen to me multiple times, best thing to do is not lock yourself into a non-cancellable reservation if it is not perfect for you and then continue to look.

4 months is early but not that early.