All of the major registrars are mailing announcements regarding the termination of grace periods.
ICANN | AGP Limits Policy and Draft Implementation Plan
During any given month, an Operator shall not offer any refund to an ICANN-accredited registrar (hereinafter referred to as “Registrar”) for any domain names deleted during the AGP that exceed (i) 10% of that Registrar's net new registrations (calculated as the total number of net adds of one-year through ten-year registrations as defined in the monthly reporting requirement of Operator Agreements) in that month, or (ii) fifty (50) domain names, whichever is greater, unless an exemption has been granted by an Operator.
In advance of the effective date of April 1, 2009 we have already seen an increase in successful hand registrations of expiring domains. Those capturing expiring domains will rejoice in this new measure as the playing field is leveled. Big registrars, with multiple channels for capturing names have had quite an advantage due to the fact they could purge names without penalties.