Hotels booked out in Rome

Welcome to the forum, paulartus -
You have a couple of issues here:
1. Rome has indeed become very busy; what used to be shoulder seasons aren't anymore.

1. A 50-euro per night budget is VERY low for this city. You are likely looking at a hostel, a room with a shared bathroom, or something some distance outside of the city center.

You've not been specific about your dates but plugging a 3-night stay for 1 person of April 15 - April 18th into Booking.com does turn up some possibilities, albeit most falling into one of the categories I've listed above, or with review scores so low that I personally wouldn't book them.

Thanks for your quick reply. More specifically, April 9 to April 12, Four nights. I looked at booking.com and changed the filters to twin beds, and price up to $150 per night for a twin. When I looked at the map, there are so many booked out and only two hotels showing up as having rooms.

Trying again: I'd put the 12th as your checkout date instead of the 13th: I've done the new search for 2 people, twin beds.

https://www.booking.com/searchresults.html?label=gen173nr-1FCAEoggI46AdIM1gEaJwCiAEBmAExuAEHyAEN2AEB6AEB-AECiAIBqAIDuALYzMynBsACAdICJDBkMDIwNWQwLTNmZGUtNGVlMi05MTAyLWM2NDgxY2EyYzY1NtgCBeACAQ&aid=304142&ss=Rome&ssne=Rome&ssne_untouched=Rome&efdco=1&lang=en-us&src=searchresults&dest_id=-126693&dest_type=city&checkin=2024-04-09&checkout=2024-04-13&group_adults=2&no_rooms=1&group_children=0&nflt=price%3DUSD-min-150-1%3Btdb%3D2

I'm seeing some decent choices, although I wouldn't wait too long to jump on them. Am I missing something?

That's a week or two after Easter 2024 (31/3) so the floodgates will be well and truly open.

I prefer to book real hotels directly, so I don't have a lot of experience with Booking dot com, but I wonder if they are the best place to look for a student-level accomodation? They are a digital company that lives by fees. Not a lot to be earned on 50 Euro bookings is what I mean.

The OP has raised the nightly budget to $150, which helps a bit! :O)

It's also unclear if he/she is a student. Paulartus, what can you tell us about yourself? And as you're looking for a room with twin beds, I assume you're traveling with a companion?

I booked in Rome for early May 2024 about a month ago, and many places were fully booked, booked at least some of the nights I was looking for, or only had limited room types available. So I agree you should book asap. And check back periodically as people do change plans and cancel reservations and you could get lucky.
Not all hotels list on sites like booking.com, and I usually find a better price booking direct with the hotel. If you use booking.com or trip advisor without putting in dates, but putting in your other filters (price range, neighborhood or distance from a specific area) etc you can generate a list of hotels you can then check directly one by one for availability. In some cases they will truly be booked up, but you may find some with availability on their sites even when booking.com doesn’t show any.
I’ve also recently booked rooms elsewhere in Italy — not big cities—for the same trip, and have still found a lot of availability and much lower prices. So I suspect it’s the big cities that are booking way in advance.
Prices are 50% to 100% higher than they were pre-pandemic. If you are a budget traveler, you might want to do some investigating because food, drink, and attractions will all be a lot more expensive and you’ll want to have a realistic picture of what the trip is going to cost.

I believe that Booking.com only shows the availability of rooms that can be booked THROUGH Booking.com. So the rooms that are shown on their website are just the ones that are set aside for Booking.com. If you see something on Booking.com that you are interested in but has no availability, try going to the hotel’s website. They may still have availability there.

In any case, I prefer to book directly with the hotel. They sometimes give a discount when you do this, or throw in a free breakfast or something, as they don’t have to pay a fee to Booking.com (or any other third-party website). However, Booking.com is a great place to get an overview of hotels in a particular area.

As far as discounts...
There's definitely more than one way to skin a cat but frequent users of booking.com can land "genius level" discounts, as I have, plus occasionally some other stuff, such as free breakfast or cab/driver from airport to accommodation. It's interesting but the few times I've enquired directly, hoping to do better than the posted booking.com rate, the accommodations haven't been able to offer a more attractive tariff.

But like I said about that cat, whatever works!
paulartus, let us know how it shakes out for you?

Private rooms in hostels might come in within your budget. It's also worth checking monasterystays.com. In both cases the rooms will be plain, but you'll be in Rome!

I believe it's true that most hotels put only some of their rooms on booking.com. it's definitely smart to check the hotel's website for additional options.

I use booking.com a lot, but for chain hotels I can sometimes do better (if only by 5%) by going straight to the source and joining the affinity group. However, I don't think there are many chain hotels in Rome with rooms for two people in the desired price range.

The RS Rome guidebook has a section under lodging: Sleeping Cheaply, Northeast of the Station.

The Beehive hostel has a double room for your dates for $100 per night - dorm rooms close to your $50 target, but that's per person
https://book.octorate.com/octobook/site/reservation/result.xhtml?checkin=2024-04-09&children=0&pax=2&codice=35594&checkout=2024-04-13&childrenAges=

You might inquire at this convent: https://www.csse-roma.com/domy-wypoczynkoweangielski

But I also see that some of the RS $$ hotels are asking $250 per night. So prices have been bid up.

You can find rooms on Expedia for under $100 per night, but they tend to be out in the suburbs. So your experience will be diminished, and your transportation costs higher,

The Beehive has been HIGHLY recommended for years, if you can get in.

A lot of small hotels do not use booking.com, especially low price hotels/hostels. Another way to look for budget hotels is open Google maps and zoom in on an area. You will see everything on a street and have to do a lot of legwork to find each hotel’s website and then look for reviews