How to transfer my domain away from A2 Hosting to ETNHost?

Here at ETNHost, we recommend that you keep your domain name where you host your website. It is easier to manage, fewer passwords to worry about, better security, and last but not least this way you get a piece of mind. You will receive regular notifications from us, via e-mail, reminding you when the renewal date for your domain name is due, so you will not miss to renew it and risk your website becoming inaccessible.

Extra:

Once the domain name is transferred to us, you will get one year of a free domain name renewal as a bonus.

Transfer of domain names may take anywhere between 3 and 10 days until completion. Before initiating a domain name transfer of a domain name registered with A2 Hosting, you will need to make sure that the following conditions apply:

• The domain must be more than 60 days old. This is not an ETNHost, nor A2 Hosting, specific rule, but rather a rule implemented by ICANN, the organization that governs domain registrations. 
• The domain has been unlocked for transfer from A2 Hosting. 
• The domain is showing your current e-mail for the admin contact in the Whois database as that is where the authorization email will be sent. You can find the valid administrative e-mail for your domain name by using the WHOIS lookup tool available at: http://whois.domaintools.com/
• The domain must not be too close to its expiration date, as A2 Hosting will normally auto renew domains 15 days prior to expiration. 

Notes:

The 60-day holding period only applies to domain transfers between registrar providers when a domain is either newly registered or recently transferred. If you just ended site services with another provider (without transferring the domain to another registrar), then the 60-day hold shouldn't apply at all. If the hold did apply, it still shouldn't prevent you from pointing it to another host service to start up a new site.

To prepare your domain name to be transferred away from A2 Hosting you must engage in the following steps:

1. Log in to the A2 Hosting Customer Portal.

2. Unlock your domain name

• On the menu bar, click Domains, and then click on My Domains.
• Click the domain you would like to transfer away.
• In the Manage sidebar, click Registrar Lock.
• The current registrar lock status appears: Enabled.
• You can disable the lock. To do this, click Disable Registrar Lock.

3. Update your Domain Contact Information if necessary (Whois information)

• On the menu bar, click Domains, and then click on My Domains.
• Click the domain you want to edit.
• In the Manage sidebar, click Contact Information.

• You can update the domain name whois contact information for the following contacts. For each contact, you can select an existing account contact, or enter custom contact information in the text boxes provided:
•     Registrant contact
•     Administrative contact
•     Technical contact
• Confirm your edits by clicking Save Changes.

4. Disable ID Protection (whois privacy) for your domain

To successfully disable your Whois Privacy, you must contact A2 Hosting’s support team and request for the feature to be turned off. You can post them a ticket to have it disabled, since you will not receive your authorization request if it's turned on.

5. Obtain your EPP/Authorization code

• On the menu bar, click Domains, and then click on My Domains.
• Click the domain for which you want to obtain an EPP code.
• In the Manage sidebar, click Get EPP Code.
• A confirmation page appears, notifying you that the EPP code has been sent to the registrant e-mail address for the domain.

After completing the preparation, let some time pass (a day or so) before you initiate the transfer. You can also check the Whois info for your domain. You can do this at http://www.whois.net or http://whois.domaintools.com or similar sites, to make sure everything shows up and is correct.

Once ready, you can now submit a transfer request for the domain:

• Start within your ETNHost account .
• Proceed with posting an order for the domain name transfer by clicking on the Domains tab.
• Upon the request of the domain name transfer, you will need to enter the Authorization/EPP code. Once the code is entered then the process will begin.

Note that you will also receive a transfer approval email to the listed administrative contact for the domain. After the transfer is confirmed the losing registrar (A2 Hosting) has 7 days to release the domain. If everything is OK, the domain will be released and added to the Domains Section in your ETNHost account.

Notes:

Once you start a domain name transfer you must remember that you can't change your DNS, Whois info, contact info and so on.