What's in a name?

Quite a lot it seems.  I own a few domain names.  Most I've had for several years and they've always been with the same registrar.  Three of them need to be renewed in a few days time and I thought I'd shop around for a better deal on renewing the registration.  My current registrar (Dotster.com) wanted $14.95 a domain per year.  I'd heard of GoDaddy.com and saw they would transfer the domains and renew them for a year for $7.95 which seemed like a good idea so I started the process...

I "unlocked" the domains at Dotster so I could move them, but the transfer kept failing saying there were still locked.  I emailed Dotster and they insisted the domains were not locked so I tried again and indeed they were unlocked.  The cynic in me would say they didn't get unlocked until I emailed complaining...  Anyway the transfer process started and I just had to let it take it's time. 

Yesterday I got a phone call from GoDaddy.com they just wanted to welcome me to their service and thank me for my business.  That was nice of them, I was pretty impressed.

Today I got an email from Dotster saying they'd seen I was transferring my domains and they were willing to beat GoDaddy's prices to keep my business.  Not only would they beat the price for the transfer and one year of service they'd continue to offer me that price for renewal of my domains for as long as I had them.  How could I say no?  My domains now won't be transferring, they'll be staying at Doster for less money with more included services.

Moral of the story?  It pays to shop around.