We cannot but 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. For example, you can enable the auto-renew feature this way and your Namecheap account balance (or a card) will be used for domain renewal 30 days prior its expiration.
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 (Namecheap does not offer backordering services at the moment).
That's it!
If you have any questions, feel free to contact our Support Team.
