When a domain is in redemption it means that is in the last phase of being held for you in your name.
The process for a domain when it expires is as follows:
From the minute the domain expires through day 15 you will be able to reclaim the domain with no issue and at its standard renewal price. However, after that time, your domain is at risk of being lost and sold to a different party.
From Day 15-40 your domain may be listed with a domain auction service, and it would fall out of our hands to rectify.
From day 41-60 your domain may be is transferred back to the Registry, which is not us and is our reseller sponsor Tucows, however, we must facilitate a redemption from there. Pricing on this may vary on this depending on the TDL. Canada does not have a redemption fee, where as .com/.net/.org can actually cost $199. Please note Domains are not required to go to redemption and domains that have a value may be set to auction rather than being released to be redeemed.
The purpose of this process and redemption at large is to allow domain owners every opportunity to reclaim their domain prior to it getting deleted some time between day 70 and day 90, which at that time the domain is returned to the open market to be claimed by anyone.
ACTWD solves many redemption issues for Tucows, and your account may be assigned here for resolution because your previous registrar was either non-responsive or at times out of business. We ask for you to understand that we are working to help you resolve issues with other companies, and none of the issues were caused directly by ACTWD or Tucows.
Because this topic has so many questions attached to it. I wrote a primer for our blog on redemptions on whether you should redeem a domain or not and what it means to you. Please click here to read that article if you have more questions.