We agree with you that the redemption fee is quite high. It is set by our upstream Registrar and Domain Registry, that is why we are unable to waive it.
We highly recommend you to take all possible precautions to avoid domain expiration and its falling into the redemption phase.
In case your domain is already in the Redemption Period, and you do not wish to pay the fee, you may wait until the domain is released by the Registry (normally, domains are released 80-85 days after the expiration) or back-order the domain using any back-ordering service.
Understanding redemption costs
When a domain goes into redemption, we can retrieve it for the current owner for a fee. This is a fee that we have to pay the registry to get the domain name back into our system.
When you register a domain name with us, we then have to buy that domain from the registry through the registration fee. The same goes for when a domain is taken out of our system to redemption when a domain expires; we have to pay them to get the domain name back into our system so that you can access the domain name. Because of this, we are not able to waive any redemption fees for you.
The best option is to make sure any domains you want to keep do not accidentally expire. Make sure the email in your account contacts is right so you can receive renewal notices. Even better, you can set your domain to automatically renew so you don't have to worry about missing a renewal date.
