You can try purchasing all of your programming a year in advance. By doing this you essentially get a month free. I have read several emails in the forum where people have done this just prior to the price hike and they were able to avoid the hike for a year.
That can be quite a bit of money though ... and in these economic times where one might have to make cuts ... if you have already committed that money and you need to cut satellite ... it might be hard to get that money back.
Similarly if your contract is about up and you have had thoughts of switching, it might not be a good idea to do the year thing either.