www.offandaway.com

[travel2fun]

Well, seems like every day brings a new spin to on-line auctions:



http://www.offandaway.com/index.page



Anyone spent any of their hard earned money here?

[omegaet]

t-2-f...first time I have seen this site. I'm not too excited about "buying" their auction tickets to use in their bidding process. Seems like unless you are very fortunate at the end of the auction and have already bought a good supply (maybe several hundred dollars of the tickets), you just end up "spending" your tickets and may or may not be the winner. If you are not the top bidder, then your only option for recovery of your investment, is to participate in buying one of their discounted offers within seven days.



I'll watch the site for a while, but I don't see myself buying their tickets and participating....anytime soon!

[jsattapr2]

Well, in my opinion and I stress, MY OPINION, www.offandaway.com looks very much like the old card games played on the tops of boxesin Times Square.



Looks like a site that has the potential to make huge amounts of money for the owners and operators of the site, as the expense of bidders who really don't understand the game. I observed a couple of the auctions, which seem to drag on for hours and watched the $0.25 bids being burned up time and time again. Remember, the house keeps all of the money they make from selling the bid chips to everyone participating in the auction. Plus there is a commission figured in somewhere along the path.



At least with Luxury Link, I understand fully what my expenses will be and it costs nothing to participate in any of the auctions.

[bonniejoy03]

Thanks J for your observations. I briefly looked at it and it does seem to good to be true. Thanks for following an auction and reporting back......

[omegaet]

j-s-2...after watching a few auctions on www.offandaway.com, I did a little Internet checking for similar auctions and or reviews or complaints.



It appears this new auction webiste is based on Swoopo and a good deal of information has been posted (just google swoopo and you can get some ideas) on the history of this enterprise.



Of course, if you are able to place the final bid and assuming you have not invest a small fortune in buying bids tickets and squandering them early in the auction....and you have the time and patience to sit in fron of your monitor for hours, then maybe you can get a cheap deal.



Not going to become one of my favorite sites to watch.
Message Edited by omegaet on 06-07-2010 10:32 AM

[jsattapr2]

omegaet, OK, you had me going there for a while. I think you may have intended to type Swoopo. I did google swoop at first and then I finally stumbled across swoopo auctions.

[omegaet]

j-s-2....thanks for pointing out my typo. I did mean Swoopo in my original post.Message Edited by omegaet on 06-07-2010 10:34 AM

[LL_Travelfan]

This sounds like "double dipping" on the auction part. Usually what sounds like to be too good to be true has a catch somewhere... The pictures, however, looked great....

[travel2fun]

LL_Travelfan, I don't know if they are "double dipping" with the structure of their auctions, but it doesn't take too long with a calculator to see they are making money off each auction, plus earning a commission. I don't think it's dishonest, but I know they are going to have a hard time keeping their potential bidders spending money on more bid packages.

[LL_Travelfan]

Hi travel2fun, I didn't mean to imply that they were doing something dishonest, but simply that this is a rather expensive way to bid on their auctions. I'll stick with LL Auctions which are more straight forward. Nontheless, thanks for digging up this new site.