Potential deal: $11 buys you chance to win a luxury hotel in Scotland

[StainlessSteelRat]

Man! What a bunch of jaded cynics! Oh well, I guess that's part of your charm.

Yes, the thread should be locked because it's off-topic. But this does NOT appear to be a scam. It sounded interesting to me, so I bothered doing 60 seconds of research and found news articles on the "sale" (article 1, article 2, article 3) and several tourism-related webpages ( Site 1, Site 2, Site 3. Another few seconds at my favorite whois site and I found that the domain in question, kimberley-hotel.com, has been registered since at least Jan 2000 AND is used by the hotel for its website. It's a nice website, too... I suggest you check it out. I, for one, took a chance on a couple of tickets (it's MY money... leave me alone about it) and urged my family to buy a few for the heck of it. So, go ahead and chide severtki for posting something that technically isn't a hotdeal, but don't accuse him of trying to scam the group. geez!

 

[Ranulf]

Well it seems on the up and up. Damn tempting especially since I'm an anglophile. Just call me Basil Faulty!

 

[huesmann]

Originally posted by: yellowfiero
LOCH-NESS!!! LOCH this thread...

Heh, good one Fiero!

 

[drgnlvrs]

Wow, nice deal. I'm in. Thanks StainlessSteeleRat, for the research on the related sites.

 

[rasputinj]

Isn't this only a deal if I win?

 

[TheBoyBlunder]

Oooh look it's a pyramid scheme. I'll pass, thanks.

 

[TheBigCheese]

Originally posted by: drgnlvrs
Wow, nice deal. I'm in. Thanks StainlessSteeleRat, for the research on the related sites.

Nice deal? The hotel is only CLAIMED to be worth 1 million pounds (probably inflated) and they will take in well over twice that if they get the minimum number of entries. Essentially you are getting a lot less than 50% return ... compare this with some casino games where they return 97% or even lotteries that return more than this.

 

[froinlaven]

Originally posted by: ytlau418
Lock this scam.

 

[purpleD]

In order for this deal to have a 100% expected return you would need ((price of ticket) * (number of tickets) = value of hotel). Right now the the price of a ticket * number of tickets is 3.5 million euros. If you think this hotel is worth 3.5 million euros then its a FAIR deal, not a hot one. Considering many items on this message board go for 50% of retail or less, tickets will have to be much cheaper to constitute a hot deal. Plus with any number of random trials you aren't guarenteed to win, even if you bought 349,999 tickets there is still a miniscule chance that you lose the hotel.

 

[StainlessSteelRat]

For anyone else who was actually interested in this, it looks like they didn't reach the target amount of tickets and have cancelled the drawing. There's a classy statement explaining it all on the site. And, no... my CC was never charged. Just thought you might be interested.

The original post's link now shows...

Dear Participant,
In spite of a two-time extension of the competition and PR support by one
of the world's leading PR agencies we received slightly under 200,000
ticket reservations for the Kimberley Hotel until June 30th, 2003.

Sadly, we have missed the target of 350,000 registrations. The game will
therefore discontinue and there will be no draw. The hotel will stay open
for guests who would like to get to know the west of Scotland in a very
special way, enjoying it at it's best.

Please know that your entry fee will not be debited from your credit
card. Your data will be deleted from our servers.

We thank you very much for your participation, as well as for the very many
positive and encouraging messages we received. We do hope to welcome you
one day at our wonderful little hotel. (for information and contact please
see: www.kimberley-hotel.com)

The Kimberley Hotel Management

The place looked nice. If I ever make it to Scotland, I'm definitely gonna stay there.