Storage of old icloud emails

I remember setting icloud to save my emails indefinitely a few months ago. Today I discovered that the oldest email I have is only for April 20th (today is June 2nd). I was about to ramp icloud up as my primary email address, but I need all of my emails saved indefinitely.

One contributing factor may be that my credit card was compromised a during late April. It so happened that the bill for icloud storage was due the next day. When the charge was refused icloud canceled my extra storage and put me back to the minimal amount they give you. I got a new credit card number enrolled the day after they canceled the old one. Would Apple have erased all of my emails in one day?

I'm not happy about this. I guess I'll have to go with the tried and true gmail...