Winning bids are an anomaly these days with cruises being over 100% capacity. You are normally bidding on cabins that aren’t even available at the time you are making the bid. winning bids only really happen when there is a last second no show. Pre-Covid and during the restart, wins were fairly common. Those days are LONG gone. The best thing about the bids is that YOU determine what cost is worth it to you or not. If you don’t think $500 bid is worth it, bid less. The only thing to be careful about is that once/if your bid is accepted you are locked in. If you dont like the location, there is no going back.