It's absolutely not ridiculous. These gift card deals are always for new purchases in between date x and date y. Your purchase wasn't within that window yet you expect compensation regardless. You didn't expect a gift card at the time of purchase, you were happy enough to hand over your money, but suddenly your $2700 Macbook isn't worth the money anymore unless you get that gift card?
I'll put it differently: You are a tiny etsy seller running a similar gift card promotion in order to increase sales. Now customers that were never told they'd get a gift card contact you and demand the card, and if you don't do it they'll stop buying from you, stop recommending you, return the product... so you give in to the demands and then buyers just a day or two beyond the return window contact you and demand the gift card because you gave it to others outside of the promotion time window as well... or they'll tell everyone about their bad experience...
Where does it stop? Why should someone within their return window get the gift card and someone outside it shouldn't? Should the return window be the deciding factor at all? After all, it's not a backdate-the-promotion time window, it's meant for when you are unhappy with the product, the thing you actually ordered. What was ordered in this case was a $2700 Macbook, not a gift card.
Why not backdate the gift card promo by a whole month, just to cover everyone? Although now what's with the people who ordered just one day before that... see the issue?
If you decide what to buy or not to buy based on customer service, you can find horror stories about every big corporation somewhere on the internet. Based on that you couldn't buy anything from any company ever again, even companies like Fairphone have shown they'll incovenience customers to save a few cents when they removed the headphone jack claiming it improves sustainability.
To be very clear, in this situation I'd appreciate it if Apple gave me the gift card for my $2700 Macbook purchase regardless, but I wouldn't complain about it if they didn't and I'd definitely not expect them to agree.
