this is from Wow.com..
yay, i wont need to pay on december 23, 2 days before xmas! i can wait until after it and use my game cards im going to get.World of Warcraft Trial-Period Extension - Block on 12/1/04
World of Warcraft's record-setting first week brought hundreds of thousands of players together to adventure in Azeroth. The extremely high concurrency numbers that we've seen since the game's launch have required us to double our total number of servers over a four-day period, which is much faster than we had initially planned. This caused some issues with a few servers, and some players had difficulty logging in to the game during this period.
We are determined to provide our players with the best experience possible. It is for that reason that we are extending the one-month trial-period for players who created accounts before or during the downtime. The length of the trial-period extension will be based on when the player's account was created:
Accounts created on November 23 will receive a 4-day extension
Accounts created on November 24 will receive a 3-day extension
Accounts created on November 25 will receive a 2-day extension
Accounts created on November 26 will receive a 1-day extension
Our sincere apologies go out to all who experienced service disruptions. As always, we appreciate your patience and support, and we wish you good luck in your adventures in Azeroth!