There's pros and cons. I had a 4 letter .com back in the late 90s, but I was on holiday and my card expired - the hosting company emailed me, but clearly I didn't get it, so they didn't renew, and "ename technology" have been squatting it for 20 years.
I always have two cards on file with my registrar, but this year I had to cancel one card and the other one expired. Thankfully I was on top of my emails but I came within a month of losing my domains, which all kind of renew around the same time. It's frustrating to have to worry about this every once in a while.
