Nothing makes me pinch pennies as much as booking a holiday. It makes me nervous to spend large sums of money on projects with so many moving parts. I could spend the same amount on a day of shopping without thinking, but on a travel website it takes me at least a few days of anxious thinking before I can work myself up to paying.
In short, I'm exactly the type of person for whom the offer of a two-night mini break for £99 was made. He's a respectable figure, isn't he? rather reaching the threshold of "too good to be true", but not (at least in my case) completely disastrous if it didn't work out.
After discount website Wowcher launched its '£99 mystery holiday' offer in early January, it says it has sold more than 4,000 trips to destinations from the Maldives to Ibiza, Paris to Berlin, New York to Las Vegas.
Although the chances of being assigned a destination like New York or the Maldives that will attract attention are extremely slim, it promises that you will stay at least two nights in a three-star hotel for £99. The majority of potential destinations were in Europe, mainly France and Italy, but also Germany, Poland, Spain, Sweden and Austria.
But of course there are catches. You get to choose your dates, sort of. The company reserves the right to ask you to make a change if, for example, you choose a weekend at the beginning of the half term but you cannot choose your destination. This is the "mystery". Once you pay your money, all will be revealed.
Additionally, the price is £99 per person, based on two people sharing a room. You shouldn't pay £99 for a single room. There are also some optional extras. If you don't like the location offered to you, you can pay £30 for something else. If you want to go in April, June or July the price is £129 per person. In addition, there are €6.99 administration costs.
However, a two-night break for £204.99 still sounded like a bargain, so I took a deep breath and paid.
My destination would be... Milan; not a bad place to go at the end of February, I decided, so I confirmed it. An agent would contact you within three to four business days to arrange the details, after which I was unceremoniously removed from the website.
The story continues
As I waited to hear back, I started to become convinced that I had been scammed. When I didn't hear anything for a week, I sent a nervous email asking for more information. No answer.
Ten days later, an automated email explained that due to the high uptake of the Wowcher offer, they were very busy and would be in touch closer to departure. I started drafting my email to Telegraph consumer champion Katie Morley, ready for the moment when the scam became apparent.
But at 9:30 PM on a Monday night, less than a month before I was scheduled to fly, my phone rang. "Hello, this is Kanika from WeekenderBreaks [a third party acting on behalf of Wowcher] - I'm calling to organize your trip to Milan.'
Given the late hour, I remained suspicious, but Kanika shared a list of possible hotels and flight times. She offered the option of swapping Milan for Lake Garda, which I declined, and took my passport details and promised an email confirmation once it was booked. A few moments later my phone pinged.
It wasn't luxury: I flew with Ryanair from London Stansted to Milan Bergamo on Wednesday at 9.35am and back at 10.30pm on Friday evening - but it looked real. My digs? It was an outpost of the B&B Hotels chain, next to AC Milan's San Siro stadium on the outskirts of the city. It didn't look glamorous but fine.
But I continued to be nervous as my vacation approached. Maybe I would arrive at the airport to be told the flights didn't exist. Or I would arrive at the hotel and find it under construction.
In fact, nothing of the sort happened. It was all quite boring. However, the £204.99 note soon started creeping up. I paid £11.15 to get to Stansted from London and €12 to get to Milan from Bergamo. The hotel itself was a slightly arduous half-hour journey on public transport from the city centre, so I paid €15.50 for a metro pass, which allowed unlimited travel for three days.
B&B Hotels turned out to be the continental version of Travelodge: cheap and forgettable, but clean, modern and with free Wi-Fi. I waived €7.90 per day for access to the breakfast buffet, and €9 for the "city tax", paid by all hotel guests.
There were downsides to the 'mystery' element of the trip. To see one of Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, one of Milan's highlights, you need to book well over a month in advance - so I hadn't been given enough time to get tickets. The same applied to a show at the La Scala opera house - even the backstage tours were long sold out.
Still, I managed to book tickets for the remarkable Duomo and rooftop terraces the day before, and hopped into the TikTok-famous spa QC Termemilano.
I also had no trouble finding a table in the city's restaurants and enjoyed the city's famous aperitivo scene like a prince.
It's easy to get caught up in the hype of a "£99 holiday" and forget how expensive traveling can be. Factoring in food and drink, transport and sightseeing, along with the initial booking price of £204.99, this quickly came to over £500 for my two night mini break.
Still, I don't regret it. That low upfront cost allayed my usual booking anxiety and ultimately took me to a city I might never have bothered to visit if I were completely in the driver's seat. The mystery element won't be for everyone, especially those planners who like to put their vacation together in advance. But for those who are at peace with spontaneity, I had a holiday for £99!
