i went to the store and spoke to the manager, he agreed, said there's no exchanges. however, i told him the customer rep on the phone said i could trade it in if i bought directly from apple store or apple.com., so he allowed me to swap. the only caveat was if i swapped bands then i wouldn't be allowed to return the watch. so i decided to keep the stone sports band. i have a small collection of other bands i can use, and who knows, i might grow to like the stone sports band.