Educational Discount + Free Ipod Touch - What's the catch?

I am hearing about the new educational discount with the free ipod touch thing.
Basically, what's the catch? Do I literally get handed a free ipod touch after i fork up the money then do a online rebate?

Can someone give me some insights to your experience with this yearly deal?

Basically I am looking at a new 15inch MBP i7 2.6. I am thinking about getting it or not, but this ipod thingy is confusing me.

Thanks guys!

 

catch is....its a mac!!! lol. jk not sure really. my buddy did the same thing and he didnt have any complaints about it.

 

The educational discount on the Mac is applied directly. The ipod you have to pay for up front, then send in the rebate to get your money back. That's it.

 

The catch is Apple doesn't do sales. This is a way to get rid of old stock (2nd gen ipod touchs) and sell Mac's.

 

the catch, as mentioned, is that you have to buy the iPod up front and they mail you the rebate.

 

but if they are trying to rid old ipods, why not sell at a lower price?
i mean, do they benefit from the rebates? its like i give them 200 more for the ipod, then they are forced to fork it back after I do my rebate.

 

because Apple never drops prices. iPods being phased out will remain full price (or very near it) until they simply disappear from shelves.

and yea, I don't know why they don't simply take $200 off at the point of sale and give you the iPod. maybe for accounting purposes.

 

pretty much yeah. If you expect that 20% of people won't do the rebate, you are saving money compared to just doing a discount. THere are other considerations as well.

 

The catch is that you have to be a student, a parent of one, or member of some faculty. Other than that, no catch, buy a Mac get a free iPod Touch but as other mentioned you pay upfront for the discounted Mac and retail-priced iPod and then get the iPod amount back as a rebate.

The good thing is the rebate (unlike many other Mail-in rebates) is quick and reliable, and also it's easily traceable online and there's an option to direct deposit the rebate directly into your back account (I think the turn around on that option is 2 weeks if memory serves me when I did an edu purchase a long time ago) rather than wait for a check in the mail.

 

i can't imagine *anyone* not sending in a $200 rebate.

it's not like people don't want/like iPods, you know?

 

What if you get a student discount on the ipod as well as the macbook pro...like when u buy from a university store?

does it give me a 200 rebate still?

 

I think it still will be 200 rebate. If not, the rebate will be for the price you paid for the iPod.

So: $200 - 20% discount = $160 <--- equals rebate amount?

 

Companies do MIRs simply because they know some customers will forget, or just won't bother to send in the rebate form.

 

yea, I definitely understand the concept. it's just that...usually the whole "they won't send it in" thing only works when...well...I just don't foresee people failing to redeem their iPod rebates. but hey...maybe it happens. just seems so unlikely considering it's something of appreciable value.

 

To the MIR debate...I'll just add that my dog literally ate my UPC from my Canon Pixma Pro 9000 Mark II printer. I was DQ'd for a $400 MIR even though I sent it in with a nice explanation and a pic (printed with their stupid printer) of the dog and all the boxes!

So yeah, that does happen I was about ready to kill my dog that day!

 

^ Poor pup. (Not you...The dog lol)

 

when i worked at best buy they showed us statistics that only 50% of mail in rebates are actually mailed in.

 

it depends how you divide to to amounts of the rebate.

For low dollar rebates, the number is even less than 50%... but for high dollar, its much higher. Basically the higher the amount of the rebate, the more likely someone is to mail it in.

I've very often not mailed in $5 or $10 rebates, because it just wasn't worth the hassle... but a $200? I'd do that for sure.

 

So does that mean you can buy a $500 32GB ipod touch along with your educational discounted MBP and they'll send you that same amount you paid for back via a mail in rebate? Or am I restricted to only $199.99 total that they'll rebate me?

 

I believe they only rebate you 200$ regardless of the size of the ipod touch.

 

awh really? that suck big time. that means you can only get the 8GB. Blah! can anyone confirm this?

 

No, read the Apple site. Apple Canada - Back to School - Redirect

 

Yes, $199 8GB Ipod + Tax is around $219. which is the maximum amount that apple will rebate back.

 

I'm confused, Did you see the chart with all the model numbers of iPods that eligible?


Anyways. You can get the 32gb or 64gb iPod touch, But you will only get $200 USD off or $219 CND.

 

I did the calculations. Assuming a 10% tax rate (Chicago sucks)

For MBP13:

Amazon: $1,159.99 (no tax)

Back to school deal: 1099 for mbp + 200 for ipod touch + 130 for tax = 1429 upfront cost

1429 - 200 rebate = 1229
-------------

so price difference between the amazon deal and back to school deal is ~70 dollars.

if i don't want the ipod touch, i need to sell it for $70 in order to reach amazon's pricing.

 

Apple does the rebate automatically in their system when you buy the Macbook Pro and the iPod Touch together under the student deal provided you buy it from either the Apple store or the online store. Apple is not trying capitalize on people who do not mail in the rebate, it's automatically in the system so the rebate will be mailed to the customer after the 14 day return period.

Apple only compensates for the base amount of $200. Tax is not refunded.

 

I bought this deal for my son to replace his current MacBook Pro which has suffered from several quality issues. I don't care to repair his current system as it seems that there are a lot of improvements in the current model compared to what he has now. I ordered the 15 inch 2.4 Ghz model with the antiglare HR screen. It should arrive Friday. The iPod Touch (which goes to my daughter) should arrive tomorrow or Wednesday.

The problems on his old MacBook Pro are that the Superdrive is glitchy and often doesn't work and appears to have caused some deformation of the front of the laptop. I plan to ask the Apple Store to disconnect or remove it and will then just use it as a spare laptop or desktop after I try repairing the stuff on the front. It also had the nVidia problem and runs quite hot.

 

some of the older ones where the optical drive came out of the front... hand weight could slightly bend down the metal and cause problems... its one of the main reasons they went to having the optical drive on the side.... but it all depends how heavy someone rests their weight. on the front of the palmrest

 

thanks for all replys.

 

Quick question, what did the rebate come back as? A check? A gift card? etc?

 

A check ....

 

Merci beaucoup!

 

I think you can also get them to do a direct deposit into your bank account if I'm not mistaken. Takes less time to get your rebate back.

 

Is the direct deposit a safe option?

 

IMO it's the safer and faster option. I've done it before and it came really fast.

 

@_@ I've never had a direct deposit done. Can someone explain to me what type of info I need to provide on the rebate sheet if I do go with it?

 

I only do direct deposit with places I work

If you read the fine print of Direct Deposit agreements.. it *usually* says you allow them access to your account to not only put money in, but to be able to take money back out to correct any mistakes...

I don't authorize anyone to take money out of my account just for some refund. If they mess up and gave me too much, they need to ask me, not just have free access to my account... cuz if they mess up once, whats to stop them from messing up again?

 

I'm looking at my Apple rebate form from 2009 and it doesn't say anything about allowing them to deduct money out; I read the whole thing including all the fine print. Maybe the 2010 form is different so I can't comment on that but FWIW it also says that the check in the mail will take 6-8 weeks and direct deposit will take 1-2 weeks. Never had any issues with direct deposit with Apple; it's fast, secure and less prone to mail/processing issues.

 

You can provide your banking info in two ways as the rebate form describes. You can either attach a void check, or (what I did) just look at a check of yours and fill in the banking info on the rebate form (Bank name, Branch address, account holder name, Branch number (5 digits), Bank number (3 digits) and account number (up to 12 digits)).

There are other info you need to fill in on the rebate form but as far as the direct deposit banking info, that's it.

 

i didn't say this rebate did that... I haven't used it. I just said that many do put terms like that in the fine print and you should be very careful and read EVERYTHING you are agreeing to when it comes to your bank accounts.

 

I know. When I read your previous post I had to check for myself, you never really know what kind of stuff is in the fine print. Anyhow, at least the Apple one is safe.

 

I received the new 15 inch MBP on Thursday, installed Windows 7 x64 and other stuff on it and gave it to my son over the weekend and took his old machine back. He says that the new one runs a lot cooler and it's faster (no kidding). He's going to try one of his heavier games on it soon and will report back on any heat issues. The new one has three times the disk space, hyperthreading for four virtual cores over two physical cores, integrated memory controller, faster bus, probably more disk cache, etc..

I have the shipping docs in my backpack and will start processing the rebate stuff this morning. I've done this two times before for the kids older computers. I don't recall that the other two were difficult but they did take a while to process.

 

I think the catch is that Apple expects you will keep purchasing Mac OSX products if that is what you learn on in College. Its a marketing strategy. And the catch is you forgot about the free $99 printer deal.

 

I think that it is to clear out the iPod Touch so that they can introduce one with a camera in the fall.

 

As I said before, Apple doesn't have sales, this is their "sale" and is a incentive for people to buy Macs now for school time, when most students are looking for a computer. It is also to clear out stock of old iPods.

 

the catch is that rebates are very specific with their rules that actually get you the money back so if you mess up you just lost $200...other than that, there isn't a catch!

 

What rules and how do you mess it up!?!? You enter some info and some numbers. So easy.

 

I just filled out the form. Name, address, email address and order number. Took about a minute. They gave me a confirmation number and said that I'd receive the rebate within 30 days.