My Dish Bill Getting out of Hand Any Ideas?

[robertw477]

My Dish bill is really getting up there. It has been creeping up for years and now with tax at $161.00 a month. I have two receivers 722's with The Everything 250+HD Package+HBO/SHOWTIME/CINEMAX/STARZ. Also have two packs of locals. Are others paying this high. I have no conract with them. Thinking about making some changes. With the DVR charges and the HD stuff over tha past few yrs I think my costs are up more than 25%. I have been paying them on time for more than 10 years. I dont pay for the monthly maint contract. The details are below. Appreciate any suggestions. Can I negotiate something better with them. At some point I would consider upgrading to the 922 on both of my sets. I never thought I would be paying this much. I understand that DirectTV would be even more. I di like the Dish technology for the most part.

Mar 31 - Apr 30 HD Duo (2TV) DVR Receiver 17.00
America's Everything Pak 104.99
5 Superstations 7.00
Dish Platinum 10.00
DVR Service 6.00
HD 250 Free 0.00
$ 144.99
Taxes
Mar 16 State/Local Tax (Sales) 16.82
Total AutoPay on Apr 05, 2011 $ 161.81

Robert

 

[gdarwin]

It's up to you to decide what you want out of your Dish service.... I'm AEP with the receivers in my sig at over $180.00 a month....

 

[robertw477]

Holy smokes $180 a month. I was wondering if I am missing something or there are further deals with Dish. Many years ago they offered a free month if you prepaid 1 year bill at a time. I did that for several yrs. I doubt many took them up on that offer.

Rob

 

[TG2]

you could look to see exactly how much you're using the HBO/Cinemax/Show stuff .. if not using it that much.. you might consider dropping the premiums and then adding a 8 dollar script to NetFlix...

for 99 bucks you can buy a pretty decent (wired) Bluray player... attach it to your internet connection (try putting a switch inbetween your network cable and the 722 receiver) then add the 8 or 9 dollar subscription to netflix and you're able to watch most of the same stuff... there might be issues with getting access to things like Shameless (Max) or Trueblood or Boardwalk .... but if not being up to the minute on those is ok... they will eventually come out on a pay / internet access locale..

 

[Tampa8]

Because we don't know what's more important to you, it is hard to recommend how to cut the bill. I would remove all the movies except HBO, and get the Starz free for the year. That would cut quite abit off. For me, I would rather keep the Superstations, and Top250, along with Platinum. If I had to cut more, it would be the Platinum. But that's me....

 

[inazsully]

Go to the 200 package and ad Platinum. Get a external hard drive. Record movies from Starz which you get for free. You'll never miss the premium channels and with the external hard drive you'll be lucky to watch all you record. If you can't wait to see a movie you can rent from Red Box for $.99 or $1.50 for blu-rays and there is always the occasional pay per view. If there is a season of something that you can't do without just get it on DVD when it comes out. You can't have everything if you want to cut costs.

 

[MattG@DISH]

The best thing to do is make a "channels that I can't live without" list, and figure out if you'd be willing to downgrade programming.

Record movies from Starz which you get for free..

If the OP had AEP when 2/1 rolled around, he received a different programming gift, which in his case looks like PPV coupons since (if) he already subscribed to Starz, Platinum, and Encore during the 2/1 changes.

 

[The Insider]

My Dish bill is really getting up there. It has been creeping up for years and now with tax at $161.00 a month. I have two receivers 722's with The Everything 250+HD Package+HBO/SHOWTIME/CINEMAX/STARZ. Also have two packs of locals. Are others paying this high. I have no conract with them. Thinking about making some changes. With the DVR charges and the HD stuff over tha past few yrs I think my costs are up more than 25%. I have been paying them on time for more than 10 years. I dont pay for the monthly maint contract. The details are below. Appreciate any suggestions. Can I negotiate something better with them. At some point I would consider upgrading to the 922 on both of my sets. I never thought I would be paying this much. I understand that DirectTV would be even more. I di like the Dish technology for the most part.

Mar 31 - Apr 30 HD Duo (2TV) DVR Receiver 17.00
America's Everything Pak 104.99
5 Superstations 7.00
Dish Platinum 10.00
DVR Service 6.00
HD 250 Free 0.00
$ 144.99
Taxes
Mar 16 State/Local Tax (Sales) 16.82
Total AutoPay on Apr 05, 2011 $ 161.81

Robert

That does seem high. Here for that price (maybe 20more) a month you could have all that + home phone + high speed internet all together.

 

[Holysmoke]

shocking bills

 

[gdarwin]

shocking bills

What do you subscribe to?

 

[CK SatGuy]

My Dish bill is really getting up there. It has been creeping up for years and now with tax at $161.00 a month. I have two receivers 722's with The Everything 250+HD Package+HBO/SHOWTIME/CINEMAX/STARZ. Also have two packs of locals. Are others paying this high. I have no conract with them. Thinking about making some changes. With the DVR charges and the HD stuff over tha past few yrs I think my costs are up more than 25%. I have been paying them on time for more than 10 years. I dont pay for the monthly maint contract. The details are below. Appreciate any suggestions. Can I negotiate something better with them. At some point I would consider upgrading to the 922 on both of my sets. I never thought I would be paying this much. I understand that DirectTV would be even more. I di like the Dish technology for the most part.

Mar 31 - Apr 30 HD Duo (2TV) DVR Receiver 17.00
America's Everything Pak 104.99
5 Superstations 7.00
Dish Platinum 10.00
DVR Service 6.00
HD 250 Free 0.00
$ 144.99
Taxes
Mar 16 State/Local Tax (Sales) 16.82
Total AutoPay on Apr 05, 2011 $ 161.81

Robert

To me, if you already have your locals, there really isn't much of a reason to have the superstations so you can get rid of those. Reading your post it seems like you have only 2 HDTVs so you can downgrade your 2nd 722 to a 612 or even a 211 and that can save you $7-10/month depending on what you get. I don't know if you watch any of the DISH Platinum channels but if you really don't, you can get rid of that too. I think that's about it for sure. BTW, I don't know where you live but your sales taxes seem way too high in my opinion. My bill is at $90 and the sales tax for me is not even $1.

 

[Paulus]

I just took HBO & Cinemax off my subscription. Dish deleted them straight away even though I had paid for them up until the 4th April.

 

[MattG@DISH]

I just took HBO & Cinemax off my subscription. Dish deleted them straight away even though I had paid for them up until the 4th April.

You'll get a prorated credit on your next bill.

 

[EatMyVolts]

OMG 11.6% sales tax. :yikes Have you considered moving?

For a week or so, keep notepads near your sets. Keep tabs of what stations you watch, sort of a personal Nielsen. It will show what you do, and most importantly, don't watch. I'd hazard a guess that you could get rid of several premiums without missing anything, probably the supers too.

My Bill
Until the Next Round of Increases
722 and 612 .... 10.00
AT250 HD ....... 69.99
HBO ............ 16.00 And I think
Platinum HD .... 10.00 I'm spending
Starz .......... 0.00 too much!
DVR Service .... 6.00
Service Plan ... 6.00
Tax ............ 0.00
Total ......... 117.99

In the end, it's all in what's important to you.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Mine is like $200 per month!

 

[jerryez]

You guys are watching a lot of TV. You need to make a list of your must watch shows and channels and then delete from the rest. You can get at120 instead of AEP250. You can watch lots of movies on the platinum channels or netflix instead of HBO etc. You can cut the superstations unless there is must see sports. You can reduce your receivers as already mentioned. Make your watch list and get started. I subscribe to Dish America with no pay for extras.

 

[samalex]

Dang, and I thought mine was high at $76/month. Here's mine for anyone interested:


59.99 - Mar 25 - Apr 24 America's Top 200
0.00 - Starz - Free 12 MO
6.00 - DVR Service
6.00 - Service Plan (15)
0.00 - HD 200 Free

Total: $ 71.99

Taxes Mar 10 State/Local Tax (Sales) 4.93

Total AutoPay on Mar 30, 2011 $ 76.92

I'm even thinking of cutting this back further since we do use Netflix and Redbox plus we DVR TONS of movies and shows for those rainy weekends. Also we're under contract thanks to the HD 4 Life so when that's over I'll probably drop the service plan as well.

As for the folks with the Everything package, I always saw that as more of a convenience or premium package that only those with money to burn would get. There's lots of great content on the standard movie channels plus with Netflix and Redbox, IMO anyway, there's no huge reason to invest the extra cash each month on extra movie channels or the Everything package.

 

[MattG@DISH]

You guys don't want to know what mine is

 

[TheKrell]

$29?

 

[MattG@DISH]

AEP
Dish Platinum
1 612
2 211k's
Service Plan
HDFFL
Employee discount