Confirmed today from a blizzard rep... The auction house runs on real time. NOT game time. Use this to your advantage.
Tuesday morning get on the server about 15 min before the down. Look at any item with a Medium or Short duration. Usually the buyouts on Blue and Purple stuff is outrageous, but sometimes the min bids are really low. Find one that has a low min, that you want, wait and just after you get the 15-sec warning place your bid. Be sure and refresh your search first to get the last value or you may get an error bidding. If someone doesn't snipe it in the last few seconds after you, it's yours when the server comes back up.
As for all you sellers - never put anything up on the AH to end during the maintenance window, or even to go on while the window is there. I never auction anything after noon on Monday.
Tuesday morning get on the server about 15 min before the down. Look at any item with a Medium or Short duration. Usually the buyouts on Blue and Purple stuff is outrageous, but sometimes the min bids are really low. Find one that has a low min, that you want, wait and just after you get the 15-sec warning place your bid. Be sure and refresh your search first to get the last value or you may get an error bidding. If someone doesn't snipe it in the last few seconds after you, it's yours when the server comes back up.
As for all you sellers - never put anything up on the AH to end during the maintenance window, or even to go on while the window is there. I never auction anything after noon on Monday.