Not long ago, we were a nation of jet-setters, paying peanuts for seats and larging it across Europe with our bulletproof currency. Now we’re broke, but that doesn’t mean we want to stay indoors. We still want holidays, but we’d rather not pay full price for them. So, this week, I’ve been hunting for bargains - and by bargains, I mean bargains.

I don’t mean “pay for four nights, get one free” offers, or “one kid stays free if he sleeps in the bath” deals, or “destroy your marriage by booking a mystery hotel because it’s cheap” promotions. I want good stuff, dirt cheap, and eBay says it’s the place to find it.

The auction site has long fancied itself as an online travel agency, and has been running trials in Germany of software that will allow bidders to put together their own holidays within the website. The technology won’t be available in the UK until next year at the earliest, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find a bargain in the meantime.

When I looked, eBay’s travel section was pregnant with promise, listing 1,931 accommodation offers, 126 air tickets, 137 package deals and 511 short breaks. The search, though, was far from straightforward.

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The first bargain I found was a week for four in the Canaries, including flights and transfers, going for £16.75, with just 12 minutes to seal the deal. The ad showed a picture of paradise - turquoise pool, palm trees and a cloudless sky - but closer examination revealed the tiny caption “Picture for illustration only”. The sales blurb set off more alarm bells. “This Is a Great Offer,” it insisted. “All You Will Have to Pay Is a £39 Per Person Booking Fee and Your Own Airport Taxes and Travel Insurance.”

Further examination revealed that the product up for grabs was “an unclaimed prize from a national promotion”. In other words, a scratch card. It’s a nice little earner: you collect the free scratch cards that fall out of magazines and sell them, sometimes for hundreds of pounds, to the desperate and gullible.

“There are almost always conditions that mitigate against these prizes being dream holidays,” says Jim Potts, of Lan-caster Trading Services. “People who have won cruises discover they’re sharing a cabin with a stranger unless they pay a huge supplement or winners from Somerset are told their flight goes from Glasgow. Availability is limited to the least desirable periods and many trips are linked to timeshare presentations. Claiming these prizes is like playing Russian roulette.”

When I spoke to eBay about the scratch-card holidays, it expressed surprise and pledged to investigate the matter with a view to suspending the sellers. I decided to let the Canaries dream holiday go. It sold to some other poor sap for £18.

My next eBay discovery looked more promising. For a Buy It Now price (see below) of just 99p, I could buy details of a “secret travel agent’s website” that would guarantee me holidays abroad for just £40. The transaction was like a cold-war dead-letter drop: I paid the cash via PayPal and waited for the secret web address to be sent to my inbox. It’s not often eBay can make you feel like Harry Lime.

In the meantime, I found a seller in Southport who was shifting vouchers entitling the bearer to “Stay anywhere in top European resorts”. With 45 minutes to go, the price in the eBay auction stood at £5.50. The voucher had “a face value of £475”, said the description, but it was another scam. It turned out that I’d need to pay £336 - on top of the booking fee, the flights, the taxes and whatever I ended up paying for the £475 voucher - to secure my holiday.

Then I found a Tuscan villa, just outside Lucca, going for 99p a night, with two days of the auction left and no bidders. If you booked this property via the website, it would cost £380 for the week, so why was Tuscan Fine Villas selling it so cheaply? The offer turned out to be less generous than it looked.

“The price is correct at 99p for one night, plus cleaning and utilities,” the agency said. “The hope is that people will take extra nights at £46 each.” I hadn’t noticed that in the small print - but still, worth thinking about for a cheapo weekend.

Ignoring a wily eBayer selling a $100 note for £58.53 - 7p more than it would cost from Travelex - I stumbled across a week for two in a guesthouse in the Gorce National Park, Poland, for £57, with three bids so far and a day to go. The deal included flights, transfers and food. Too good to be true? Glowing testimonials for the seller, Alternative Holidays (www.alternativepoland.com ), from 264 satisfied customers suggested otherwise.

Suddenly, I was sniffing out deals like a Piedmont truffle hound. Four nights in a suite in Riad Mur Akush, in Marrakesh, was waiting for the gavel’s crack at £79. The riad’s website (www.riadmurakush.com ) had the same stay for £286. Then I found a lovely-looking apartment in the Alpine village of Sainte Foy, sleeping eight, in the sellout spring half-term week, up for grabs at the Buy It Now price of £1,399. Identical properties in the same building for the same week were on sale elsewhere for £2,800.

There was a two-night break for two in Oslo’s Radisson SAS hotel for £55, with two bidding on it and just six hours to go. A last-minute bidding war took it to £107 - still a steal, as the same stay, booked through the hotel’s website, was £321. Other Radisson lots included a weekend in Berlin at £155 - official price £577 - with one day to go. Radisson confirmed that these deals were for real, but said the promotion is coming to an end.

WHERE ELSE should bargain-hunters be searching? You could try the Thomson auction site (www.thomsonauctions.co.uk ), where the holiday giant unloads its unsold stock. Last week, a sevennight stay for two in Minorca went for £300. A sordid parade of booking fees, auction charges and other costs added £100 to the price, but if I’d booked the same holiday on Thomson’s main website, it would have cost £580.

If online auctions aren’t your thing, look instead at the holiday website Travelzoo (www.travelzoo.co.uk ). Last week, it had a 14-night trip to Goa for £539pp, including flights, and an 11-night holiday on St Lucia with Hayes & Jarvis for £429pp - less than half the list price of £886.

Finally, there’s that “secret travel agent’s website” I bought for 99p. You thought it was going to be rubbish, didn’t you, but it’s actually rather good, listing not one but 23 websites offering discounted holidays and low-cost flights. There’s little on eBay that you couldn’t find by yourself on Google, but the “secret travel agent’s website”, called Comtec, was new to me - and, after logging on, I found some serious deals, including a week on Diani beach, in Kenya, for £537pp with Monarch and seven nights in Barbados for £451pp with Virgin Holidays. I can’t pass on the address, though, because it really is a secret.

“That website is a product that is sold to travel companies under licence,” said Comtec’s rather suspicious sales and marketing director. “You shouldn’t have it.” I’ll delete it, then, but not before I’ve found a cheap weekend in Vienna.

Top tips for eBayers

1You need to register at www.ebay.co.uk before you can bid. Packages, accommodation and flights are sold either at a fixed Buy It Now price or as an auction-style listing in which the highest bidder wins. Be prepared for most bids to happen in the last minute.

2If a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is. Reread the small print and be sure you know exactly what’s on offer. Are you dealing directly with the supplier or not? Are flights included? Is the price for the entire stay, or is it merely a deposit? Are you buying a scratch card?

3If you buy transferable air tickets, be aware that the airlines can charge up to £80 for name changes.

4If a deal goes wrong, your chances of compensation are limited. If pushed, eBay offers a maximum of £120 in compensation, less £15 for “processing costs”. Comparable deals can be found at listings websites such as www.travelzoo.com .

5Before bidding, read seller feedback and cross-reference with other sources, such as www.tripadvisor.co.uk or www.holidaywatchdog.com .

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