Can't seem to get Dreamhost to transfer my domain

I switched to Dreamhost as my server, and took them up the offer for the free transfer of a domain name. Well, my domain name is about to expire (3/20) and Dreamhost never got the transfer worked out.

I unlocked it so they can transfer it, and they didn't transfer it within the window of doing so. And now they limited customer service I am getting from Dreamhost is saying it is too late to transfer my domain name and I have to renew it with Network Solutions.

Now I am pissed, and I can't seem to get any return emails from Dreamhost on how to get this transfer done. I just paid for 2 years of service, and if this is the CS that I get for the next two years I am not going to be happy. It is already calling me more money than it should.

No idea what went wrong here, but any time I've had trouble with transfers, it was because the losing registrar took their time releasing it. If that's the case, I don't know of anything that DH could have done.

It's generally a bad idea to wait until the last minute for transfers, if leaving is important.

As far as support response time, they shoot for within 24 hours. Are they taking longer than that to respond?