You should always continue to monitor the renewal process until you receive an email that 'confirms successful renewal'. Let's look at the renewal process in some detail before we examin the auto-renewal "feature" of your client area.
90, 60, and 45 days before a domain registration expires, an automated reminder is emailed to the address(es) in your client details. 30 and 5 days before a domain expires an email is sent to the admin contact listed in the domain's WHOIS listing. This email is sent out in the name of 'Domain Registrar for A B Host' by the registrar on behalf of A B Host. This email is not sent to the email address in your client area details!
The manual process to renew your registration is:
1) You order your domain registration renewal for a one to nine years period.
2) We invoice you for your renewal order.
3) You pay your invoice.
4) We process your order and submit it to the Registrar.
5) The Registrar processes your renewal at the Registry.
6) You receive your renewal confirmation.
This entire manual process is completed in about five minutes about 90% of the time, but that other 10% can take several days for a varity of reasons.
When 'auto-renew' is enabled the process is:
1) Your renewal order is placed automatically.
2) You will be invoiced five days before the DUE DATE which should be 35 days before the expiration date.
3) We will make one attempt to charge your payment card on file on the DUE DATE. If payment fails you must pay manually on the web site.
the remaining steps are the same as above.
What can go wrong with 'auto-renew':
1) Your invoice will not be gererated if 'auto-renew' is not turned on at least 6 days before the DUE DATE.
2) If the DUE DATE is not set correctly, you will not be invoiced at the correct time. If the DUE DATE is set too close to the expiration date, your domain may not renew on time.
3) If your invoice is not paid, your renewal will NOT be processed.
4) The Registrar does not make refunds on renewals. So if you do not cancel your invoice before the DUE DATE you may have to pay for a renewal you did not want!
5) Only customer support can change the DUE DATE and number of years renewed. We will attempt to renew for the same number of years as your last renewal.
After reviewing the above, ABHost recommends:
1) Always keep your client details and WHOIS details current.
2) Renew your domains for two or three years at a time.
3) Please read the entire text of emails we send you. Form letters and procedures do change.
4) If you manage a large number of domains and fully understand the auto-renew feature you may want to enable it. Double Check the DUE DATE for each domain before turning this feature on. Also check the number of years that each domain will renew for. Please phone to discuss this feature if necessary.
