Many of us set aside the time of the switch, so if we lose our bids we can look for a hire-able trader. It would be extremely thoughtful of ZOS to let us know the how and when we might want to be ready for it.
In the past whenever trader flip coincided with maintenance (which used to happen quite often in The Old Times) the flip would have already occurred once the server came back up and unclaimed traders were immediately hireable.
Welcome to PS4 three weeks ago. Things happen. As such the truth is “You should have put in your bids earlier during the week”.
I get the whole waiting till the end of the week for maximum funds in the bank to bid but still, anything can happen. Wasn’t last year with the entire pandemic in real life just an example of that?
If you lose your trader for the week well that’s just bad luck. But then it’s still fair for every other guild that went ahead and placed a bid prior to maintenance which can occur at any time thanks to the TOS. You’re not owed anything.
Track, We place our bids on Sunday. But if we lose our bids we'd like to have a fair chance of finding and hiring a hire-able one. That is all... I'm not that dumb.
I'm not exactly in what order they flip but i've noticed that the major city traders flip first and so on. somtimes its around 3:04 PM Eastern before all traders flip and usually around 3:06 PM non hired traders are available to hire for 10k. Sometimes its 3:10 PM or so before can hire them too. If can find a trader that just says "Guild Trader" with no guild name after 3:05 PM then just keep clicking on hire trader, backing out, going back in and clicking hire trader til it lets you do it.