The rebate seems to be different between europe and the u.s. In europe you only get a certain amount of cash back while in the u.s. you get a free nano.
It was like this last year too, I bought my ibook in Santa monica with a student discount, I couldn't get the rebate though because I didn't have a postal code in the u.s. 🙁. It still saved me 200 euro's though.
The bottom line is the u.s. always gets apple items cheaper, and they get the better rebates.