winning bid below minimum bid?

[reevesp]

Hi,



I"m a new subscriber to Luxury Link and in exploring the web site, I've noticed that several of the winning bids for auctions are lower than the minimum bid. How is this possible? Many thanks for your help!

[mary-j]

hi, welcome to luxury link. Which propertydid you see this happen on? Very interesting asI would have thought that would not be possible, asI assumed the lowest bid would have meant exactly theat....no bid would be possible below that amount???

[reevesp]

Hi Mary,





Thanks for responding so quickly. If you go to the Auctions home page, there is a link in the lower right-hand corner that will allow you to view the winning bids for the past week. Several of the winning bids, including the first (for a place in Austria)are lower than the minimum bid. I'm sure there is a reason for this.....but I can't figure it out! :-)

[claassenam]

Your message piqued my interest - I've actually never spent much time looking at the past winning bids. I appreciate your pointing out the link!

I think I figured it out. What is going on is the "minimum bid" shown is not the original minimum bid, it is the final minimun bid that would have been required to win that auction just before it closed, thus it is always $20 or $25 above the final winning bid. It's the next available bid amount, yet time ran out and the winning bid/winner won the auction. Does that make sense?

[funtimes]

Hi - Classenam is correct - I wondered the same thing until it dawned on me that what appears to be a win under min bid is actually just the final number. When more than one bid is received the bidincrements increase. You will notice that all of the apparant below min bids are in the bid increments amount. May the highest bidder win Happy travels...Funtimes

[bdsouza]

I once bid on a package that was below the minimum bid, and LL sent me an email asking whether I would increment my payment to the minimum bid requested by the seller. I think it was a difference of about $50/100 which I was happy to do since the package was heavily discounted. There have also been a couple of times where there has been a difference in the same packages being offered with slight differences. There was another thread on this a while ago - suffice to say that one needs to bid when one sees the right package.

BDS

[omegaet]

We have attempted several times over the years to make offers below the starting minimum (especially when we have seen the same packages offered and not sold several times). We even called the office in LA and tried to negotiate a lesser price than the starting minimum. All of these offers have been categorically declined by LL. Frankly, we were "testing the waters" to see if our offers would be accepted (had they been accepted, even on a "one time" exception basis, our confidence in theveracity of the on-line bidding system used by LL would foreverhave been called toquestion).