I had been keeping my eye on the Mystery Auction for Albergo al Sole in Asolo, Italy, for several days. I'm planning a trip to Europe for some time in the next year, and I thought that Italy would be a great destination since I hadn't been to the country since I was a teenager. The package looked absolutely amazing and, having done my research, I noticed that the identical package was available as a regular auction item for $540, roughly a third of its retail value.

Bidding was going up very slowly, a dollar or two at a time, and several hours before the auction was due to close, it was still at around $250, an amazing bargain. I was hoping that the auction would somehow slip by unnoticed, but I was very wrong. I definitely underestimated the astuteness of the Luxury Link community.

My strategy was to refrain from bidding until there was one minute left, thinking that I could sneak in a winning bid. The problem was that five minutes is added to the auction if someone bids in the last five minutes before closing. So, although I had the lead bid for a short time, the clock reset and the bidding continued. Another community member must have had the same idea, since he/she also placed his/her first bid in the closing seconds. The bidding frantically continued and we went into double overtime. Then triple overtime. I decided to bow out when the price was only $30 less than the regular auction price.

The auction was a lot of fun. Although I've purchased many packages from Luxury Link, this was the first one that lasted so long. It was definitely March Madness, Luxury Link style!