Can anyone recommend a reasonably priced hotel in Ostend, with plenty of onsite parking?
Not specifically Ostend (or Oostende if you are a Fleming!) but I have found Ibis Budget hotels to be reasonable.
When my father was serving in Germany, 57-60 we used to stay in an Ostende guest house run by an Englishman. A very popular o/night for BAOR <> UK.
It was a small place 3-4 rooms - one w/c on a landing. This had a key. I - 6/7 y.o. - locked it from the outside and hid the key. Uproar. Eventually I was forced to confess.
Relief all round.
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Check Booking.com. We travel a lot and use them most of the time (notwithstanding my dislike for real or quasi monopolies). You can use the filters to specify private parking, distance from town centre, etc, etc.
I have to say I’m not a fan of Booking-dot-com.
I’ve used them twice - the first time they didn’t pass my booking on to the hotel so when I got there at 9.30pm there was nowhere for me to sleep - the hotel receptionist kindly phoned round and found me somewhere but it was a bit of a doss house, and of course I had to pay for the second hotel and then get a refund from booking-dot-com. They didn’t offer me any compensation
Second time (in Amiens) the hotel was OK but they did the petrol station trick of keeping the “hold” amount on my Wise card - I paid the bill for the night’s stay when I left but didn’t get the down-payment back for about three weeks.
OK it’s a sample of two, and the second one may have been the hotel rather than the online agency, but it didn’t inspire confidence.
Nowadays I research places to stay via the booking sites but then go direct to the hotel website to actually book.
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I found a hotel with parking, but it was 25 Euros per day, just for parking. 
Not an extraordinary fee for private, secure parking in cities. Imagine the hassle and delay if your car was broken into? We’re over a barrel 
I usually stay in a hotel in Folkestone, which has on site private parking, for just ÂŁ5 per day.
Yes, best method!
Me neither, but we use them all the time, especially for “road” trips. If we are staying over, say, three nights we’d investigate the hotel/chain website. But as I mentioned (casually) on the Amazon thread this “guaranteed best price” bullshit for Az, Booking et al is actually price fixing. FFS.
Monopolies and nobody to “fix” 'em.
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Did the ECJ not put an end to this for booking
I’m not up to date John. But anytime I do a compare, incredibly 
the room rates are the same, with or without breakfast is the same, free cancellation uplift is the same, parking is the same, etc.
There may be legislation, but which hotel or chain is going to take on Booking? As usual passing legislation is one thing but enforcing it is another.
And with that bastard Trump, US monopolies are have a golden era.