when you get into long bidding wars, you will try anything to save a few tokens - if you are not a token buyer. Trying to bid at the last second is not my main strat when I am spending over 20 tokens in an auction. In a long bid war, you have to minimize these types of snafus and bid safely if you want to guarantee you are around long enough to win.
I am sure the OP will learn from this, as we all have.