so I buy a mac book pro from best buy and if i still want to get a apple care, should I still get from apple store or no?
MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2012), Mac OS X (10.7)
Not sure if Best Buy sells Apple Care or not, but you can call Apple Support and the phone agent will be happy to sell it to you, or you can buy it from the Apple Store. As long as the computer is still under the original 1 yr warranty.
No. You should shop around. Many times, I've found AppleCare plans for up to $100 less than Apple's price. There are a lot of discount electronics sites that sell them cheap(er).
One of my favorite places is this one - they offer quite the savings (and no, I'm not affiliated with them, just a customer):
Just make sure you register it online at the Apple site before 364 days after your computer purchase are up - it does nothing unless it is registered.
Wow Babowa, those are cheaper than Apple's education pricing!
In fact, that is cheaper than Apple's employee pricing!
I was in Best Buy yesterday with this very question. My wife was given authorization to purchase three Macs for her nonprofit. She purchased one of these computers from another (not a chain) retailer a few weeks back and got AppleCare at below Apple's retail price. With this weekend's sales, Best Buy was advertising a better deal on the same MacBook Pro model, so we went in to discuss. The BB sales rep in the Apple area confirmed the discount price on the machine but said they don't sell Apple Care. I indicated to my wife that I believe you can buy the Mac from anywhere and subsequently purchase Apple Care from Apple. The BB rep said they have an Apple employee on site, and he would discuss this with him. When he came back, he said this person told him that Apple didn't offer AppleCare on computers and hadn't for the last 10 years! In what struck us as a blatant lie in order to push BB's extended warranty, as soon as we could close our gaping mouths, we headed for the door.
Indeed. I have never been impressed with anyone at Best Buy. Alas, many Best Buy employees are required to sell a certain amount (in $) to keep their job (something like $400/hr last time I heard). This puts a great deal of pressure on employees to sell, sometimes at any cost. So, the blame for much of Best Buy's poor behavior is on Best Buy's decision to create such a poor working/shopping environment, not their individual employees. Indeed, I know a variety of employees who move from Best Buy to Apple and end up thriving at Apple where there are no minimum dollar amounts and where many conversations with consumers are purely educational.
Also, a good rule of thumb is to check each company's website for details about products and pricing. It is always up to date and you can hold a company to the products/pricing they offer on their website (at least, this is true of Apple).
I hope you end up finding the right deal on your AppleCare!
Just as an FYI, Apple used to do price-matching in their retail stores. I'd print out babowa's link above and bring it in to an Apple Store to see if they'll still do that...
so I buy a mac book pro from best buy and if i still want to get a apple care, should I still get from apple store or no?
