That is exactly it. GoDaddy doesn't give any sort of courtesy heads up. Expiration date was yesterday at midnight. When billing failed (despite the fact that

That is exactly it. GoDaddy doesn't give any sort of courtesy heads up. Expiration date was yesterday at midnight. When billing failed (despite the fact that I'm a customer in good standing with a mess of other domains) they IMMEDIATELY parked the domain. I imagine I selected auto-renew because it seemed like I was less likely to screw up renewing the domain. I no longer think that's the safe path.