I've just started to use a feature on Pure Holiday Homes called Bidango. It's like eBay for accommodation - I offer a specified week in our house to the highest bidder, and there's a reserve, a closing date and a buy-it-now price. I'm just experimenting with a couple of weeks to see if there's any interest, but I suspect we're too cheap. Under this system, you could 'win' a £300 week for £200 or something, which hardly seems worth the uncertainty. (Whereas if I could get a three-grand-a-night Bond villain's lair for forty quid, I'd get quite excited by the prospect even if it was located somewhere I didn't want to go.) Mind you, on eBay people regularly pay more for useless old tat than they would for nice new stuff from John Lewis - something to do with the psychology of bidding - so it'll be interesting to see what happens.
Anyway, if you're reading my blog, I'll discount the price just for asking - at least outside of main holiday periods. We've got about five weeks booked for 2012 at this stage - which isn't bad, as I don't think we had anything before Christmas last year - but we could do with more. NB: I'm putting in an extra single bed, so from about March it'll sleep six.
