[Skypalace]

Does DirecTV currently allow two homes on one account? Or are two accounts always required?

This is with dedicated receivers in each home, no transporting of receivers, each in different locations (far apart) getting local channels. ie. on the up and up.

From older threads I see references to explicitly allowing two homes on one account, such as
Directv in Two Homes
which says (in part)

To clarify: You can have 2 locations on one account, but they cannot be active at the same time. To quote directly from DirecTV's CSR guide, "Receivers for primary home and second home should not be active at the same time. If customers want them active at the same time, set up a separate account for the second home."​

but that's an older (2005) thread so I'm curious if it's still valid.

Elsewhere I read that I need two separate accounts. The AT&T support page on "How to suspend your DirecTV service" says something interesting:
https://www.att.com/support/article/directv/KM1237725/

If you only have 1 account, you can suspend it 2 times in a 12-month period. Have 2 or more accounts? You can suspend each one a maximum of 4 times in a 12-month period. If applicable, we'll extend your service agreement for the amount of time you suspend your account. For example: Your service agreement expires in June, but then you suspend the account for 4 months. The updated service agreement now ends in October.​

Which implies that there's a way for them to know that the same person/account how two accounts, but when I asked on a chat (for another issue) they said I needed a separate login/email account for a second account, so how would they know if I'm eligible for 'suspend each one 4 times in a 12-month period' (which I'd vastly) prefer, over 2 times.

So Q1 is: Does DTV support two homes on a single account? That's of course what I'd prefer, so as to not have to double-pay for programming charges. I'd be happy to pay for the receivers in both places.

Another question (Q2): What happens if I want to resume service in less than 30 days, ie. I head to one of the houses after 25 days, and can't get by without a DirecTV fix. One possibility is that they retroactively cancel the suspension, and you pay for the full 30 days as if it wasn't suspended, but wondered if someone knew for sure, someone here must have done a suspension then wanted access before the full 30 days.

 

[slice1900]

You will have to have two accounts if they are far apart and you want locals in each house, unless one of them is in the NYC or LA markets. You can't switch your service address every time you switch houses, they won't do that.

How often do you move between houses and how much time do you spend in each?

 

[raott]

I haven't looked at them in a long time....but have their terms of service been updated to reflect limitations on how often you can change a service address?

You will have to have two accounts if they are far apart and you want locals in each house, unless one of them is in the NYC or LA markets. You can't switch your service address every time you switch houses, they won't do that.

How often do you move between houses and how much time do you spend in each?

 

[MysteryMan]

I haven't looked at them in a long time....but have their terms of service been updated to reflect limitations on how often you can change a service address?

This is what the 20 December 2019 "Residential Customer Agreement" states about address changes..."You must notify us immediately of any change in your name, mailing address, residence address or telephone number by contacting us at 1-800-288-2020". Most likely Skypalace will have to have two accounts.

 

[James Long]

AT&T did not update the TOS but they did update their internal policies regarding the number of address changes permitted per year.

Equipment MUST be at the same location and that location MUST be the one reported to AT&T|DIRECTV ... leaving some receivers in each household (whether neighboring apartments or across the entire country) is NOT permitted. Two households sharing an account is NOT permitted.

 

[Skypalace]

You will have to have two accounts if they are far apart and you want locals in each house, unless one of them is in the NYC or LA markets. You can't switch your service address every time you switch houses, they won't do that.

How often do you move between houses and how much time do you spend in each?

Ok from this and other posts, it looks like two accounts. We travel back and forth multiple times a year. sometimes for short times, sometimes longer. Not the standard snowbird 6 and 6 (or even close). So the 4 suspensions per year per account vs 2 would be nice.

Give the above-referenced note on suspensions
Suspend DIRECTV Service - DIRECTV Support

If you only have 1 account, you can suspend it 2 times in a 12-month period. Have 2 or more accounts? You can suspend each one a maximum of 4 times in a 12-month period. If applicable, we'll extend your service agreement for the amount of time you suspend your account. For example: Your service agreement expires in June, but then you suspend the account for 4 months. The updated service agreement now ends in October.​

Has anyone done/tried the '2 or more accounts' section to get 4 suspensions vs 2 per year? And how would ATT/d* know that I have two and that they're related, if I'm required to have separate logons for each?

 

[raott]

They can update their internal policies all they want, but the customer is only bound by the TOS. In an extreme example, if a customer moved to ten different apartments in a given year and was under contract, I'd expect they'd have to change the service address ten times or let the customer out of the contract.

AT&T did not update the TOS but they did update their internal policies regarding the number of address changes permitted per year.

Equipment MUST be at the same location and that location MUST be the one reported to AT&T|DIRECTV ... leaving some receivers in each household (whether neighboring apartments or across the entire country) is NOT permitted. Two households sharing an account is NOT permitted.

 

[James Long]

Good luck with that.

 

[raott]

Don't need luck. They can abide by the TOS or not.

Good luck with that.

 

[James Long]

I expect there will be more trouble for a customer who failed to abide with the TOS than for the company. Suing monoliths like AT&T is expensive - and pointless since customers agree to arbitration. Only the most agreedius violations would lead to a successful result.

 

[raott]

Which is why States have attorney generals. Monoliths tend to pound sand when the power of the State becomes involved. And I realize Directv and ATT probably don't think tenants of contact law apply to them, but it does. They would spend way more money filing a motion to dismiss to arbitration than an ETF.

I expect there will be more trouble for a customer who failed to abide with the TOS than for the company. Suing monoliths like AT&T is expensive - and pointless since customers agree to arbitration. Only the most agreedius violations would lead to a successful result.

 

[James Long]

See above. Cyclical argument.

 

[raott]

Cant imagine why anyone wouldn't be cynical with this company at this point. A company whose predecessor I used to champion and recommend whenever asked...those days are long gone.

See above. Cyclical argument.

 

[Getteau]

Ok from this and other posts, it looks like two accounts. We travel back and forth multiple times a year. sometimes for short times, sometimes longer. Not the standard snowbird 6 and 6 (or even close). So the 4 suspensions per year per account vs 2 would be nice.

Give the above-referenced note on suspensions
Suspend DIRECTV Service - DIRECTV Support

If you only have 1 account, you can suspend it 2 times in a 12-month period. Have 2 or more accounts? You can suspend each one a maximum of 4 times in a 12-month period. If applicable, we'll extend your service agreement for the amount of time you suspend your account. For example: Your service agreement expires in June, but then you suspend the account for 4 months. The updated service agreement now ends in October.​

Has anyone done/tried the '2 or more accounts' section to get 4 suspensions vs 2 per year? And how would ATT/d* know that I have two and that they're related, if I'm required to have separate logons for each?

I put DTV in our second house about 4 years ago (pre-AT&T). When I called to get the second location setup, I thought it would be a sub account or linked account or something that might tie the two together (I was hoping for that so I could get larger discounts across both accounts). Long story short, it wasn't. I have two independent accounts and post-AT&T merger, the vacation account was migrated over to AT&T billing. Thankfully, my main account is still with DTV billing. Once it was migrated to AT&T billing, I was never able to get any new discounts on the vacation account. Before I suspended the account, it got to the point that my small 4 TV vacation house setup was running $40-$70 more a month than my primary account with 6 TV's. Since we don't go there very often and since I couldn't get any new discounts applied to the account, I suspended that account about 6 months ago and have been paying the $7 a month suspension fee. We have a great Internet connection there and all the TV's have Roku's attached to them. So the next time one of us goes to the house, we're pulling all the DTV equipment and canceling the service. Between the big streaming services and all the individual channels that have service if you use your DTV credentials, we really don't need a dedicated account there any longer. Certainly not one that is over $100 a month. We never watched the local channels at the beach anyway, but we can throw up an antenna to get those if we ever decide it's a big deal.

My advice to you is DON'T DO IT. if your second house is within a couple hundred miles of the main house, you will most likely get your local stations. There are transponder maps on here if you want to check or if you know someone there with DTV, bring a receiver with you one time and see if they come in. If that's the case, just get some additional DTV receivers/DVR's, NOT genie-mini's, pickup a dish off Amazon and install the equipment at your other house (it's not that hard to do and for a vacation place, it doesn't need to be perfect). If you can get the receivers for free or at a discount as part of an upgrade on your main account, all you will pay is the $7 monthly charge for each extra receiver. If you are too far away for your local spot beam, you can still use the receivers, you just won't get any local channels. To work around that, put up an antenna. That approach will save you the $50+ a month you will pay for the package/RSN fees on the second account. If you can be open to bringing a receive back and forth, you can even save on the $7 per receiver fee by reducing the total number of receivers you need to cover both locations.

On the suspension front, we haven't un-suspended yet. From what I remember, once you un-suspend, the account has to remain active for at least 30 days before you can suspend it again. So it's really geared towards the multiple-month on/off situation and not the weekend on/off situation.

But as I said above, unless you have 0 Internet options at the second house, you can work around having to get a second account with a two year commitment.

 

[trh]

I put DTV in our second house about 4 years ago (pre-AT&T). When I called to get the second location setup, I thought it would be a sub account or linked account or something that might tie the two together (I was hoping for that so I could get larger discounts across both accounts). Long story short, it wasn't. I have two independent accounts and post-AT&T merger, the vacation account was migrated over to AT&T billing. Thankfully, my main account is still with DTV billing. Once it was migrated to AT&T billing, I was never able to get any new discounts on the vacation account. Before I suspended the account, it got to the point that my small 4 TV vacation house setup was running $40-$70 more a month than my primary account with 6 TV's. Since we don't go there very often and since I couldn't get any new discounts applied to the account, I suspended that account about 6 months ago and have been paying the $7 a month suspension fee. We have a great Internet connection there and all the TV's have Roku's attached to them. So the next time one of us goes to the house, we're pulling all the DTV equipment and canceling the service. Between the big streaming services and all the individual channels that have service if you use your DTV credentials, we really don't need a dedicated account there any longer. Certainly not one that is over $100 a month. We never watched the local channels at the beach anyway, but we can throw up an antenna to get those if we ever decide it's a big deal.

My advice to you is DON'T DO IT. if your second house is within a couple hundred miles of the main house, you will most likely get your local stations. There are transponder maps on here if you want to check or if you know someone there with DTV, bring a receiver with you one time and see if they come in. If that's the case, just get some additional DTV receivers/DVR's, NOT genie-mini's, pickup a dish off Amazon and install the equipment at your other house (it's not that hard to do and for a vacation place, it doesn't need to be perfect). If you can get the receivers for free or at a discount as part of an upgrade on your main account, all you will pay is the $7 monthly charge for each extra receiver. If you are too far away for your local spot beam, you can still use the receivers, you just won't get any local channels. To work around that, put up an antenna. That approach will save you the $50+ a month you will pay for the package/RSN fees on the second account. If you can be open to bringing a receive back and forth, you can even save on the $7 per receiver fee by reducing the total number of receivers you need to cover both locations.

On the suspension front, we haven't un-suspended yet. From what I remember, once you un-suspend, the account has to remain active for at least 30 days before you can suspend it again. So it's really geared towards the multiple-month on/off situation and not the weekend on/off situation.

But as I said above, unless you have 0 Internet options at the second house, you can work around having to get a second account with a two year commitment.

You're out of contract on your vacation house, correct? I think when you suspend your account, it also suspends the count-down on your contract. Something to check unless you're 'OK' with the ETF.

 

[Getteau]

You're out of contract on your vacation house, correct? I think when you suspend your account, it also suspends the count-down on your contract. Something to check unless you're 'OK' with the ETF.

You are correct, we've been out of contract for a couple of years. The other thing that happens is that any discounts you have applied to the account continue to run while the account is suspended. So the small 12 month, $10 a month discount I was able to get before the suspension continues to count down. Since I'm suspended, it doesn't apply to anything. However, the clock continues to run on the discount anyway.

 

[BrendanJ]

Why can't I transfer service between my 5 vacation homes, it's not fair, not like local governments make me pay estate taxes or anything?

 

[litzdog911]

Why can't I transfer service between my 5 vacation homes, it's not fair, not like local governments make me pay estate taxes or anything?

Because DirecTV/AT&T don't want you to. Dish Network makes it much easier.

 

[slice1900]

Why can't I transfer service between my 5 vacation homes, it's not fair, not like local governments make me pay estate taxes or anything?

You can't do that with cable TV, or internet service or electricity either.

 

[BrendanJ]

guess I forgot the /s tag