Accrding to a press release we received today 1and1.com has started selling pre-registrations on the  new TLDs including:
.BIKE
.SINGLES
.HOLDINGS
.CLOTHING

“These pre-registrations are on an exclusive first-come, first-serve basis, which means no other 1&1 customers are able to pre-register a domain option that has been previously chosen by another party.:”

“On the specific launch date of the selected TLD, the allocation of domains is carried out by the domain registry.”

If you thought that 1and1.com has already been accepting preregistrations they have not, they have been accepting prereservations.

According to Kelly Meeneghan of 1and1.com they are accepting pre-registrations only for these four domain extensions.

This means that we are simply allowing those that are first in line (based on pre-reservation and new requests) the opportunity give their credit card information to allow for a speedy registration once the domains are available to order from 1&1.

Since it is a first-come, first-serve process, this is to the benefit of all those that pre-reserved.

The transaction will be processed when the domain name registration is successful, which is expected in mid-January.

“Just to clarify, we have nearly 4 million pre-reservations, not pre-registrations. ”

“At this time, only the four domains listed below are available for pre-registration. ”

“When pricing information, terms & conditions, etc. become available for each new TLD, we will inform all pre-reservations that they can proceed to the next step of the process and pre-register their preferred domain.”

Now that should be perfectly clear.