Comment by noAnswer

The ratio between people who lost their "free big provider" account do to arbitrary algo decisions and people who lost their domain because they ignored provider's invoice for over a month must be 1.000.000 to 1. :-)

I use a prepaid provider. If at the day of the renewal there is no money "in the bank" they immediately release the domain. So yeah, I treat their reminders with priority. I really should change providers...