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Bought iPad Air 2 and saved $ with a hack.

lightmyway

lightmyway

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 11, 2007
96
165
After finding out that iPad Pro was only going to have 2GB of RAM, I bit the bullet and bought the Air 2 128GB + LTE from Apple's refurb store. I was hesitant, because I live in a state that charges 9.25% sales tax. I remembered that Raise.com sells Apple Store gift cards, and bought 13 of them in $50 increments to total the amount I needed, at about a 7% discount. Apple only lets you input 8 of them, so I had to call customer care and they were very patient in letting me read all 13 of the PINs to them over the phone. (What they do is combine several of them into 1 at first, then input the remaining 7 normally.) So my $654 purchase only cost me $606. Just a tip for those of you considering a purchase soon.
 
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Be careful, lots of times those gift cards are scams. And if the company finds out you got them from a third party retailer like that, they consider them unauthorized and zero them out. It can work and save you a few bucks but be prepared to spend lots of time on the phone with customer service if things don't work out.
 
AmazingKerem said:
Haha, that's pretty clever :D
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At least he isn't buying a 4 day old device with 17 month old hardware for hundreds of dollars more.
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Wait until Best Buy drops the price on the IPP 9.7 by $100 in a couple of months and you can call it the Air 3 and be happy!
 
ACG12 said:
Wait until Best Buy drops the price on the IPP 9.7 by $100 in a couple of months and you can call it the Air 3 and be happy!
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Or, mix it up a little and you could have the worlds first iPad Pair.


***Edit
Not my best work I've got to admit, what can I say, Ive just had my meds :D
 
HiItsMe said:
Be careful, lots of times those gift cards are scams. And if the company finds out you got them from a third party retailer like that, they consider them unauthorized and zero them out. It can work and save you a few bucks but be prepared to spend lots of time on the phone with customer service if things don't work out.
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Nope, Raise.com is very legit. This is the first time I've used them with Apple, but I've used them with Home Depot, Lowes, and others numerous times. Have never run into a problem. Apple asked me why I had so many gift cards and I told them Raise.com. They had no problem with it.
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ACG12 said:
Still seems like a lot of money for a 17 month old device.
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Agreed. But with a year of AppleCare included, seemed like a good deal to get the top-of-the-line version of this model for $200 more than the base model. I also met an Apple employee in California once who works in the refurb department, and he told me that the refurbs get tested WAY more stringently than new ones.

Side note: I put my Air 1 32GB + LTE on eBay, and was surprised to see they offer a guarantee that it will sell for at least $306 (if it doesn't reach that amount, they give me the difference in a coupon). Considering that I bought it used on eBay exactly one year ago for $310, I call that a win.
 
lightmyway said:
Agreed. But with a year of AppleCare included, seemed like a good deal to get the top-of-the-line version of this model for $200 more than the base model. I also met an Apple employee in California once who works in the refurb department, and he told me that the refurbs get tested WAY more stringently than new ones.
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Are you living in CA...?
 
I did this with home depot, I purchased credits from people on craigslist for 30% off and more and then got the lowes 10% off coupon, was able to carpet the bedrooms on the house I bought. Regular price was $3200 and I ended up paying out the door $1900. I do that anytime I need to make a big purchase, and I only buy from craigslist so we meet at the store to verify its good.
 
Congrats on your purchase! My launch Air2 is still going strong! I was dead set on a iPP 9.7 until the 2gb ram info came out. At least your Air2 will become obsolete about the same time as the iPP 9.7 will!
 
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lightmyway said:
Tennessee. I travel for work. 9.25% TN sales tax is :confused:, but at least we don't have a state income tax!
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You can be glad that it is 'only' 9.25%. Here in Denmark the sales tax is 25% :rolleyes: And that is small compared to the income tax.

I hope you will enjoy your new iPad Air 2. And thanks for passing on the tip :)
 
magbarn said:
Congrats on your purchase! My launch Air2 is still going strong! I was dead set on a iPP 9.7 until the 2gb ram info came out. At least your Air2 will become obsolete about the same time as the iPP 9.7 will!
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My thoughts exactly. I was willing to pay the money for the 9.7" iPP until I found out about the RAM.
 
HiItsMe said:
Be careful, lots of times those gift cards are scams. And if the company finds out you got them from a third party retailer like that, they consider them unauthorized and zero them out. It can work and save you a few bucks but be prepared to spend lots of time on the phone with customer service if things don't work out.
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Please educate yourself about Raise.com and stop spreading misinformation.

Raise.com is a very well known site to both customers and retailers alike.
 
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Jtludwig said:
Please educate yourself about Raise.com and stop spreading misinformation.

Raise.com is a very well known site to both customers and retailers alike.
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I've used raise.com and had success and I've also used them and gotten zero balance cards. I'm glad it's worked well for you but I've had hassles (and it was a PITA to get my money back from their customer service). So thanks but just because someone has a different experience than you doesn't mean they're uneducated.
 
HiItsMe said:
I've used raise.com and had success and I've also used them and gotten zero balance cards. I'm glad it's worked well for you but I've had hassles (and it was a PITA to get my money back from their customer service). So thanks but just because someone has a different experience than you doesn't mean they're uneducated.
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It does when he says the retailer is going to "zero" them out. That is an absolutely false statement.
 
Jtludwig said:
It does when he says the retailer is going to "zero" them out. That is an absolutely false statement.
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No, actually that's exactly what happened to me. I ordered two dunkin donuts gift cards. When I went to use one for the first time, it had a zero balance. I paid for my coffee with cash and went home and called dunkin to ask what was going on with my card. They said it had a zero balance and wouldn't tell me how or why. So I asked them to check the other card too in case there was something wrong with that one as well. They said they were both flagged for fraud and both useless. When they asked where I had bought them, I told them raise.com and they said that raise.com and other similar sites are unauthorized third party dealers and as such they don't honor their cards and confiscate them/zero them out. They insinuated that the cards were reported stolen before having been sold to me but did not flat out say that.

Again I'm glad you've had success. I'm just trying to share a cautionary experience. No need to be so hostile.
:)
 
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