davezan - 1:13 am on Jul 16, 2011 (gmt 0)

Sigh, you can thank those registrars for causing all that confusion. But in WHOIS, there
are two important details to take note of: the last updated date, and the status line.

If the status line indeed says Redemption Period or Pending Delete: Restorable, then that
is its current state. The last updated date will tell you when that started.

Assuming the domain name's indeed in Redemption, count 35-36 days from the last date.
That'll approximately tell you when it'll become available, and that's assuming no one else
will grab it.

What company to make a backorder with depends on what is the domain's current state.
Nowadays you do that with the registrar or its partner if the domain's expired, then you
do that with "big" players like SnapNames if it's in redemption period onwards because of
their more numerous resources.

Good luck.

David