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Contents
The Offer
- Apple is running their annual Black Friday – Cyber Monday sales event where you can get a gift card bonus with many purchases.
For example, you’ll get a $50 Apple gift card when you buy certain iPhones; $100 when you buy certain iPads, etc. Even accessories like Airpods or Apple Pencils or Airtags are eligible for a gift card bonus. You can find the full list of gift card amounts being offered at this link from Apple.
Our Verdict
Apple rarely runs deals directly from their website, and often prices are cheaper on sites like Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. With this gift card event, the deal might be better with Apple in some cases. I’d recommend checking on the other websites to compare since the things that I’ve compared usually came out cheaper to buy from the other retailers, even when factoring in the Black Friday gift card offer. There are probably some scenarios and models that would make sense to buy directly from Apple, so I thought it worth a post.
Use a shopping portal for Apple purchases; see this post for details on which portal to use. Remember we get a longer holiday return window now. According to an Apple rep I spoke to: if you return an item, the gift card will get cancelled out if it wasn’t used; if it was used, that amount will be deducted from the refund.
Also remember that students and teachers can get an Education discount year-round on Apple products; this won’t stack with the Black Friday gift card deals.
Only $100 gift card for macbooks. Used to be $200 🙁
Am I the only one outraged iPhone 12 is $30 more if SIM-free? Carrier upgrades are $30 less, but the gift card won’t show in cart. Buying it unlocked does but they get you by making it $30 more expensive…
When did Apple start doing this? It’s on the 12 and 13.
Also, you can just buy the Verizon version – that’s unlocked.
Can you do a dedicated post about iPhone 13/pro deals with wireless careers and who’s providing best deals? Looks like current Verizon subscribers get a raw deal to renew contract and their best bet is to switch to other careers like ATT and T mobile
would love that, here or a link to anywhere else that has the best deals. Walmart has an ok promotion for Apple on AT&T or Verizon, but I really don’t know if it’s the best one.
I mean there’s a lot of those types of articles online already.
Can you do a dedicated google search for your question?
so pay full price and ill get some gift cards??
I’ve been slowly building up my Apple Gift Card supply over many months for Black Friday. 20% off gift card combined with a 10% credit card merchant offer. 15% off the gift card combined with a different 20% merchant offer. Another gift card discount combined with a get $50 back off of $200 purchase merchant offer. So on and so on.
I’ll technically be paying full price on the Apple Store, but my combined payment methods has been discounted a ton.
And there is the Beat Buy gift Apple gift card sale happening now. And you can combine that Best Buy Apple gift card sale with the Amex Best Buy merchant offer for an additional cash back.
Keep in mind that you can use up to eight gift cards on apple.com
Can a purchase be made via the Apple website using GC pre loaded to Apple ID?
Yes.
But you can redeem an unlimited amount of gift cards to your Apple ID balance. And you can then use that Apple ID balance to pay for your Apple Store purchases. So if you have more than eight gift cards, it’s not actually a problem anymore.
technically not unlimited from my recent experience. they have an upper limit of $2000. so the maximum you can use for a purchase is $2000 + 8* whatever the largest possible value for an apple gift card.
Good enough for most people
Okay, yes. I suppose it’s technically not literally “unlimited”. If we want to be very specific, I suppose the actual limit is possibly 200,000 individual gift cards (if every one of those 200,000 gift cards had exactly 1¢ on it and your Apple ID began with a $0.00 balance), lol.
(Or 200,000 + 8, as you say.)
The point I was trying to make is that with the Apple ID balance, you could easily go beyond the eight gift card limit that an issue for ordering in the past. But yes, you are technically correct (the best kind of correct!).
(I’m joking, of course. I wasn’t aware that Apple ID had a maximum balance of $2000. That’s certainly good information to know. Thank you.)
-Edit- Also, just used my Apple ID balance to buy an iPhone 12. Finally replacing my iPhone 7. That 7 lasted me a long time. Hopefully the 12 will do so as well.
I guessing — with all my combined gift card discounts and whatnot — I’m getting this iPhone 12 at a 35-40%-ish discount. And most of that was thanks to DOC with them keeping me informed about various Apple gift card deals over the past few months. So thank you, DOC. It’s a big late, but if it was still Thanksgiving, I would say that I’m thankful for DOC for the savings!
I’m not happy with this post of mine. I wrote it as a little too jerk-like (when I just wanted to joke a bit). Too late for me to edit it though. Sorry about that.
its all good. I’m more amazed how you were able to get 35-40% off though since the best discount i’ve seen recently was like 15% off. (would like to know more because i buy apple products probably more than i should)
Thanks, I didn’t know this! When you buy an iphone this way, is it locked to your Apple ID? Or is it linked in any way to your Apple ID?
Smart. Wish I’d been thinking like this and planned ahead.
Stack with Apple gift card deals from target or Best Buy.
Indeed. I’ve been slowly building up my Apple Gift Card supply over many months for Black Friday. 20% off gift card combined with a 10% credit card merchant offer. 15% off the gift card combined with a different 20% merchant offer. Another gift card discount combined with a get $50 back off of $200 purchase merchant offer. So on and so on.
I’ll technically be paying full price on the Apple Store, but my payment method itself has been discounted a ton.
$25 back on a 4 pack of Airtags that costs $99 is pretty good. A lot of deals for the 4-pack have been in the $90 range.
Can this be stacked if I buy through the Chase Sapphire portal? (25% off)
No
Will this work using chase ur points at 1.25 for apple?
In the terms: “This offer cannot be combined with the Corporate Employee Purchase Program, education, or business loyalty pricing.” So can’t be stacked with educational store price, right?
That’s what I assumed. I’ll update as confirmed