Do you think it will help to call?
I've had dish for four years and would like to get these things also.
They don't seem to care about faithful customers .
Here's what I do, I call and ask "can you please tell me when my contract is up?"
Once I know that, when the date passes my contract is up I'll look up what price I could get from Dish (cause I want to have accurate info if Direct asks) and I call Direct and ask to be put through to the dept that cancels service. I'm calm but I say everything and give every indication that I'm serious about cancelling. I don't even ask for anything at first. Inevitably they'll say something like "can I ask why you want to cancel?" Then I calmly say, "it's simple really... Dish is cheaper and I have to save money where I can." This last time I even threw in "I also saw Dish now offers a cool Hopper feature that looks good to me". Really, my main goal was a new Direct receiver and whole home DVR. So the guy asked "well what would it take to get you to stay with us?" and I said "give me the hardware and waive the installation fees for whole home DVR". And he said, "absolutely, I can do that for you. I'll also take $$$ ( don't remember how much exactly) off of your monthly bill for a year, would you stay with is then?" And I repeated what he just offered just to be sure, and he said "yes". I said, "ok, I'll stay". It was as simple as that for me.
In my experience the key has been the fact that my contract is up and I have leverage. Each time, they've surpassed my requests in exchange for me signing on the dotted line for another 2 year contract.. which I'm happy to do because I'm happy with it anyway.
