We cannot but agree with you that the redemption fee is quite high. It is set by our upstream Registrar and Domain Registry, that is why we are unable to waive it.
We highly recommend you to take all possible precautions to avoid domain expiration and its falling into the redemption phase.
In case your domain is already in the Redemption Period, and you do not wish to pay the fee, you may wait until the domain is released by the Registry (normally, domains are released 80-85 days after the expiration) or back-order the domain using a back-ordering service, for example, Namejet.com.
That's it!
If you have any questions, feel free to contact our Support Team.