Having trouble with hotel pick/travel

Looking at the hotels in April majority of Kyoto and Osaka Hotels are fully booked.

I found a good deal for a hotel in kobe on my 3rd/4th day.

I will arrive at Nagoya Airport first and was wondering if I should stay there for 2 nights (nice hotel and i would travel between nagoya to osaka / kyoto) OR head to kobe and stay there 1st-4th night. the 1st and 2nd night in kobe will be at different hotels but a little bit pricier than the first 2 nights in nagoya. (+100USD difference in kobe first 2 nights)

But i'm thinking if i'm taking the bullet train it will cost a lot more going back and forth between the 1st and 2nd day.

THANKS

It depends what's more important to you: cost or convenience. It wouldn't be too hard to calculate the extra transport costs and then work out if you'd be saving or losing money by staying in Nagoya.

Hotels for the Kansai area in April start selling out six months prior (or earlier - I booked my first hotel for this time in August last year!). If you want to travel cheaply/easily in cherry blossom season, you've really got to be prepared!

Don't forget to check all available sources; even just changing the language setting can make new options suddenly appear (e.g. using Rakuten in English versus Japanese). Also check the hotel websites themselves in Japanese. If you use Google Chrome, it will automatically translate the webpages for you (not always accurate, but understandable enough).