Thankfully, I have it on my cable package. I called Comcast a couple weeks ago to see about a reduction in my bill, b/c it went up $20/month. The reason given is that I'm in the second year of a 2-year promotion, so the cost goes up somewhat, but I'm not eligible to switch to the newer promotion that would be $30 less. The only thing they offered was to downgrade my service so I would only get the "limited basic" channels which I knew wouldn't include Universal/Olympic, or a bunch of other channels. And there wasn't even that much of a cost difference. So I'm keeping my current plan at highway robbery price.
Sorry to hear that, Debbie. I started getting these really good 'loyalty promotions', etc. about 3 or 4 years ago. I've had DirecTV since 2005. The past few years, they've been really good about giving me 3 free months of premium channels, etc. Last year, DirecTV gave a 35 dollar credit for a year which expired the end of June.
A couple of weeks ago, I called DirecTV with questions about my package, and they wanted then to check if there were anymore loyalty promotions. That's when they gave me the 25 dollar credit for another year. So I was surprised when I called them today, and they upped my credit to 45 dollars a month, gave me the Ultimate Package and the 4 free months of Showtime.
I know that a lot of you have Comcast, but I can't get that in my hometown. The cable that is now offered in my town is NewWave. They took over Mansfield Cablevision which is what I had before I finally got DirecTV. At that time, the channels would become snowy, and I found out that was because of the filters they had to use if you didn't want HBO, Showtime or Starz. There was only one HBO, Showtime and Starz, and we have to remember that I'm talking about 2005. I found out about the filters because one of the cable guys tried to fix it on the telephone pole across the street. My channels were suddenly clear, and the cable guy said the only way he could do that was remove the filter. But then, he had to put the filter back on there since I didn't have the premium channels. Afterwards, I called DirecTV and cancelled Cablevision.
I've never had Dish Network, but my brother does. He's had it for quite a few years and told me that they have never given him any loyalty promotions at all until last week. He received a letter in the mail and they offered him a 10 dollar discount for year if wanted to get HBO. My brother actually has a similar package to what I have now with this Ultimate Package. He gets the Starz Encore channels like I'm now getting. When I told him about what happened today, he said he was calling to let Dish know that he was seriously thinking about changing to DirecTV because I was always getting great promotions and discounts which they have never offered to him.
At least that's one good thing about DirecTV. When I was at NurseCare in 2011, they also put a hold on my DirecTV for a year where I wouldn't have to pay it monthly until I was able to come home. Once I got home in 2012, I had my package with DirecTV again.
Hopefully I can figure how to hook everything up myself. 
