Barcelona - Hotel reservation cancellation

You must be looking at third-party booking sites like Bookimg.com and Expedia. They list a lot of low "come on" prices for rooms that are per-paid and non-refundable. But usually those same hotel rooms are available at a higher rate, with no prepayment required and a fair cancellation policy.

Use those 3d party sites to find and review hotels, but book directly with the hotel and get the type of room and cancellation terms you want. We stayed at Hotel,Jazz several years ago with a regular credit card guarantee and paid at the end. It is a nice hotel in a great location.

Very large booking agencies such as hotels.com and booking.com do offer non-refundable rates but also show an array of other rates that may allow no-fee changes. Perhaps you are not going from the early pages on these sites through to the order page where the alternatives are laid out.
In my experience, these agencies very often will offer lower rates than some hotels themselves show. This is not true of airline tickets, where the operators have the lowest price. But for reasons I can't explain, the hotel agencies do sometimes offer bargains. My guess is that they are big enough to have a room allotment per night at a discount rate. I'm not sure of that but I am sure I will take that lower rate.

Be sure you compare apples to apples-refundable rates quoted on consolidator sites versus same size room quoted on the hotels website. Not always easy as you'll see terms like "delux", "superior", etc. used in different ways. If you can't figure out what room you are looking at email the hotel. If you find a rate that looks lower on a consolidator, once again, email the hotel. My experience is that they will most often match it. For a myriad of reasons, you're better off booking directly with the hotel. And, after you've booked check the rates often right up to departure. I have often found rate changes significantly in my favor and you won't get these automatically. If you see that, email with what you found and you will get the new rate.

Definitely book directly with the hotels and not through a third-party site. My recent experience with booking the lower nonrefundable rates in March and then having to cancel due to sudden illness was that after politely explaining the circumstances to the hotels and providing proof in the form of doctor verification of the illness and its severity the hotels agreed to allow us a credit for what we had paid, to be used within a short period of time (we rebooked for July and just returned). I would also note that we made it clear that we understood that the original terms were for no cancellation and no refunds, accepted that the hotels did not have to do anything for us, and thanked them profusely when they agreed to allow us a credit. Also I have just finished writing glowing and well-deserved reviews of each of those hotels. But I think all of those hotels offered slightly higher rates that allowed for free cancellation, and if I thought there was any possibility of having to cancel, I would definitely choose the higher rate. In fact, after this experience I may do so anyway as a form of trip insurance, since stuff happens.