My domain was set to expire on September 11th of this year (coincedence). Instead of renewing at Register.com, I moved to Go Daddy. Register.com wanted me to pay $25 to renew for a year, and Godaddy let me move to them and renew for a year for $9. And the interesting thing is that as soon as I had initiated the transfer process, I got a verification email from Register.com (normal procedures). They said, “We hope you’ll reconsider and renew your domain name with register.com for an additional year for the special promotional price of only $12!” I had to think long and hard about that one… 🙂
I would have been more persuaded if Register.com had offered that price up front, instead of trying to swindle their customers by charging $25 until you decide to leave, and then trying to bait you with a half off deal (still more expensive than Go Daddy).
By the way, I love Go Daddy’s whois feature. To access their customer database from the web, you have to manually go to their site and enter a dynamically generated alpha/numeric code. This code is embedded inside of a .gif image, so that its virtually impossible for people to troll the Go Daddy database using a spider or robot. The only way to access email addresses and other private information about people that own domains registered at Go Daddy is to manually check them one at a time, which means entering a code for every address you want to check. Good thinking, Go Daddy! 🙂
Oh, and I just checked Go Daddy’s website and they have a promotion right now that allows you to transfer your domain to them for only $7.75! Quick, everybody go there now and sign up!! 😉 (No, I don’t get paid any money to promote them like this)