I've recently transferred a couple of domains and I thought Just Host was difficult, yet that was easy compared to 1&1. Just Host took a couple of hours and it was complete, 1&1 took 5 days as they made it so difficult. You have to cancel the contract before you can transfer and unlike other providers, the auto renewal is set as standard and the only way to stop it is to cancel the contract, which left my domain with a blank page for several days. I wouldn't use them again for this reason as they also auto renew six weeks beforehand and you can't change it unless you cancel again.
We briefly tried 1&1 a few years ago and had nothing but trouble. It was difficult to get any problems resolved and customer service was very lacking. We've since been using FatCow.com and have been more than pleased with them.
Oh no! I just pre-registered some domains with them. Didnt think it'd be so hard for a trasnfer. Hopefully if I do buy them the process will improve or I'll be able to at least host them somewhere else.
I think it's their way of holding onto people with lots of blurb, saying if you don't transfer in time then you lose your domain. Most companies let your contract run out, but they don't. You have to cancel in order to transfer, so while some people put in a transfer request and unlock and think about it, you can't with this company. If you intend staying with them fine, but now I realize an easy transfer option is worth the little extra. I use namecheap right now and they are easy to use and very transparent. Yes, I would host elsewhere, but there renewals can be quite high depending on your domain. To keep a .com was nearly 15GBP and on namecheap, I transferred for under ten dollars which is nearly double.
You just made a very scared man. For starters, I have registered about 5 domains with 1&1 and hosted them on Blogger (taking advantage of their $0.99 promotion). I was planning to transfer all to Namecheap where I have been a customer. Are you saying I may not be able to transfer my domains or what?
Ultimately, you should be able to transfer your domains, although it may take some time and frustration.
Network Solutions is even worse. They will try to auto renew you up to *three months* in advance. And if their payment doesn't go through - perhaps because you switched banks, or use different credit cards now, they will automatically keep trying to process the payment day after day after day, which can result in a lot of insufficient funds charges, and declined charge fees. From what I recall, my site was offline for nearly two weeks, when I tried to transfer my domains away from them to another registrar. It was a huge pain in the butt too. Thanks for sharing your experience with 1&1 so I know to avoid them as well. For what it's worth, I recently used Name.com to register a new "premium" TLD, and I've been pretty pleased with their service so far - no complaints here. They don't offer those "99 cent" specials like GoDaddy does, but they did sell me a premium domain for $150 less than what GoDaddy was asking for it ($250 vs. $399).
