Although it sounds too good to be true, the papers say that holidays to the Mediterranean are going for as little as £49 per week - and at that price I'm keen to get my pale mitts on one. Apparently the cheapest way to do so is through an online auction.
Everyone who has ever used the internet knows that its capacity to save time and money is matched only by its ability to waste those two precious resources. Auctions are odd things, too. Like minibars, their entire existence is brazenly geared to making punters pay an absurd amount of money for something they don't particularly want. Be it that nervous twitch mistaken for a bid, or that psychological twitch whereby you think you're richer than you actually are.
So buying a holiday on an internet auction website might seem a bit like asking for trouble, but when 14 nights for two in Corfu is being offered at the starting price of £1, common sense is rapidly bludgeoned aside by greed - or at least the prospect of saving a small fortune.
Tuesday
I read that package holiday giant MyTravel has one million unsold summer holidays still rattling around, so it makes sense to the meanie in my head that it will be selling them for driftwood prices. I don't mind which beach I end up on, I'm travelling at the last minute and I'm fairly 'net savvy' so surely I should have no problem getting away with my girlfriend for less than £100 each.
On the MyTravel website the holiday lots up for auction are laid out in a table with 'destination', 'duration', 'quality of accommodation', 'airport', 'date of departure' and, most importantly, 'date of auction closure' listed. The routine is that you sign on to the website, choose a lot from the list, place a bid if you so wish and at zero hour the highest bid wins.
It's Tuesday afternoon and I bid for seven nights on Spain's Costa Dorada, because this lot has the nearest closing date (Wednesday at 7pm) and because the holiday for two is currently going to be sold to a browser called Numpty for a total of £39. Bids have to be made in increments of £20, so, with blood rushing to my head, I immediately click the button to pitch my price, only to be told that I have to sign on first.
During this rigmarole the usual lengthy forms appear - hellish offspring of an unhappy marriage between the sales and marketing departments, the one desperate to take credit-card details and immediately let you loose to spend, the other desperate to strip you of all resaleable info by asking inane questions such as: 'Which type of holiday would you consider taking?' (well any, or I wouldn't be here); 'Would you like to be greeted formally or informally?' (@*!@); and the ubiquitously perplexing 'How did you hear about the MyTravel site?' (how long have you got?).
Released from this corporate hell with the necessary web identity to bid, it's back to the auction site and I've got a holiday for two in Spain for £59 just hovering within my reach_ with just 25 hours till closing time.
Wednesday
Straight on to the net to check the status of my bid. TopTracey started the bidding at £1 on Monday, Numpty raised it to £39 on Tuesday morning and pleasingly my £59 bid sits prettily on top.
Throughout the day nothing happens. At 6.15pm I log off and go home, hopeful that with only 45 minutes until the close of play remaining, my bid is secure.
Thursday
Horror of horrors. At 6.30pm TopTracey came back with a bid of £79, Numpty responded with £99, TopTracey risked £119 at 6.58, and then out of nowhere at 6.59pm JackieO came in with a victorious bid of £139. This audacious swoop by JackieO (a week's holiday for her and a friend at £69.50 each) changed everything.
Previously I had imagined a modest community of holiday-seekers consisting of easily cowed cheapjacks (namely TopTracey and Numpty) and me. Now, it seemed, there were any number of professional auction watchers and rapacious holiday snatchers hiding out in far-flung corners of the globe watching the lots like hawks. I was clearly involved in a much more serious racket than I'd previously imagined...
When you fall off a horse, get straight back on. I immediately homed in on a week for two in Malta currently owned by RatBoy at £19. Lot to be sold at 10.30am Friday. Now I've learnt from JackieO that to place a bid so early would be foolish, but, not trusting the trains, and with the price so low, I figure I'll throw my hat into the ring today and hopefully join the hawks in the morning. But when I try to 'login' I am inexplicably confronted with all those 'signing on' forms to fill in again. I go back and forth checking my username and password over and over but every time I reach the same page. When I painstakingly try to sign on with exactly the same details again I am told that a TomObserver already exists!
Finally I pick up the phone to ring the Help Desk - characterised on the website by a picture of a smiling girl in an orange shirt. After being put on hold for ages, I'm told the technical staff might get back to me, but then again four hours later it seems they might not. My non-technical solution is to log on again with a different name. This done I (rather nerdishly) log out and try to log back in again, aware that ease of access will be vital in any last minute showdown with the JackieOs of this world. Caramba! Once again I'm back to the miserable forms. Now I am faced with signing on to the website as a new user every morning and also every time my computer crashes. Trembling, I go through the forms for a third time, with only just enough imagination for a fresh username.
It's by this time that I thank Bill Gates I'm doing this at work. If I'd been using my home PC with its tiny modem it would all have taken three times as long as this purgatory. Now, with the tedium of perpetually signing on afresh, it's paramount that I bid for this Maltese holiday today and then log in tomorrow under yet another new name ready to clean up the scraps - while taking care not to bid against myself. Job done, I get to sleep excited at the prospect of my £39 holiday twisting in the ether.
Friday
In at 10 o'clock and straight to the website. Merry hell was played last night by rampant insomniac geeks. My measly bid lies crushed under a list of new names. Although RatBoy and a resurgent Numpty also joined the fray, someone called Mumbler is sitting pretty at £139. With just 30 minutes to sale time I must log in immediately and crouch ready to pounce at £159, £179 or even £199.
But try as I might, I cannot sign on to the site again. Either my computer, the website or my mind has broken. Perhaps all three.
'This username password combination has already been used.' 'Please fill out "Departure Port Preference" details.' And the crowning glory: 'Sorry, an error has occurred. Please click here to return to the site (logged in users will be required to log in again).' And what about us mere mortals?
I returned to the auction to find it all over. A rabid flurry of bids from anonymous net pirates was overcome by a desperate Numpty at £279. He and his friend will be sunning themselves on the edge of some dreary stink pit in Malta, but - and the thought is a bitter one - he'll be sunning himself. As for me, the game's up. Even if I wanted to carry on (I don't), access to the wonderful world of online holiday auctions has been inexplicably denied.
The moral of the story is: A holiday in the hand is worth any number of cheap ones in a bush surrounded by God knows how many other holiday seekers with unimpeded web access. Now I really need a holiday...
Some sunshine-seekers' webnames have been changed to protect the innocent
Make your bid for a spot on the beach
If you are not suitably put off by this tale, holiday auctions are available at the following websites:
www.mytravel.co.uk
www.qxl.com
www.ebay.com
