Apple, Inc. announced today their plans for distributing the long-awaited (okay, it’s only been a week or so) $100 credit to existing iPhone customers. If you own an iPhone and have been living under a rock, you might be wise to check out what’s been going on with this.
See, Apple dropped the price of the iPhone last week by about 33% ($200 to you and me) and a bunch of people who already paid the full price for their iPhones got pissed off about it. So, Apple decided to do right by their customers and give existing iPhone owners $100 credit to the Apple Store.
Now, one should make serious note that Apple already has a 14-day price protection policy. So if you buy something from Apple and they lower the price within 14 days of your purchase, you can go back to Apple and they will just give you the difference.
The $100 iPhone credit I’m talking about is for people who bought an iPhone 15 days or more before the price drop. Anyone who bought it within 14 days of the price drop can just go back to Apple and get the full $200 difference back. Those of us in the 15 day or more crowd can only get $100 back which is not too shabby of a deal if you ask me. And if you’re reading this, then you’ve asked me.
So, how does one get their $100? I thought you might ask. And just for you, my gentle readers, I took the plunge for you today. I went to my local Apple Store (the best one on the planet, I might add) seeking my $100 credit and this is what happened.
The nice people at the Apple Store told me that I needed to follow these steps:
1) visit Apple’s website and follow the link from the main page
2) enter my phone number and iPhone serial number.
3) wait for up to 5 minutes while the site 1)verified that I had indeed activated an AT&T account on my iPhone and 2) that the serial number was valid.
4) look for an incoming SMS text message on my iPhone which would contain a validation code.
5) go back to the website and enter the code
6) print out the resulting credit code and take to Apple Store to redeem.
Since I was already in the store at the time, I used one of the plethora of Macs just lying around otherwise going to waste. I printed my credit page on the printer at the Genius Bar and a friendly salesperson kindly retrieved it for me (since I figured my wandering behind the Genius Bar without being an actual “Apple Genius” might get The Steve mad at me or something).
Once you have that credit page printed out, you can use it as if it were a gift card. They said that the only things you cannot buy with it are iTunes music and another Apple Store gift card. All in all, the process was pretty painless for me. I’ve been hearing reports from some who have had much difficulty, though, so your mileage may vary.
What did I buy with my credit? One of the new 802.11n Airport Base Stations to replace my aging, 7-year old Linksys wireless router. Now, all my base are belong to me true.
Anyone else have any experiences with the credit that they’d like to share?
