Estimated Mac trade-in return time?

[Cruciarius]

I've never traded-in a Mac. Usually they die or go to a family member. However this time around, I want to trade-in my late 2014 iMac towards a Mac Mini. I know the process involves them sending me a shipping label & supplies to ship it out. Has anyone done this? Estimated time to get those supplies? Estimated time to receive your Apple Gift card with the value of the computer?

Ideally I'd rather buy the Mac Mini, then migrate the iMac to the Mac Mini, but I also don't see much of anything on Apple's store I'd want to buy with the gift card. Planning to put the gift card towards the Mac Mini + Apple Care. If Apple carried other things in-store, like better speakers or other monitor options, I'd be more open to the idea of just trading-in the iMac right now, without doing the migration (I have Time Machine setup anyway). Or am I overlooking something that I should consider buying to go with the Mac Mini? I already have 2 monitors I plan to use with it for a while, until I can get 2 nice 27-inch 4K monitors for it.

Just don't want to be without a desktop computer for too long. A week would be fine, for example. If it's something like 2-3 weeks, I'd wait a bit.

 

[chscag]

Are you close to an Apple Store? Packing an iMac and shipping it is quite a chore. I recently shipped a 27" iMac to my son who lives in the Atlanta area and it's quite costly to ship and not easy to pack even with the proper materials.

 

[yellowtonkatoy]

I've never traded-in a Mac. Usually they die or go to a family member. However this time around, I want to trade-in my late 2014 iMac towards a Mac Mini. I know the process involves them sending me a shipping label & supplies to ship it out. Has anyone done this? Estimated time to get those supplies? Estimated time to receive your Apple Gift card with the value of the computer?

Ideally I'd rather buy the Mac Mini, then migrate the iMac to the Mac Mini, but I also don't see much of anything on Apple's store I'd want to buy with the gift card. Planning to put the gift card towards the Mac Mini + Apple Care. If Apple carried other things in-store, like better speakers or other monitor options, I'd be more open to the idea of just trading-in the iMac right now, without doing the migration (I have Time Machine setup anyway). Or am I overlooking something that I should consider buying to go with the Mac Mini? I already have 2 monitors I plan to use with it for a while, until I can get 2 nice 27-inch 4K monitors for it.

Just don't want to be without a desktop computer for too long. A week would be fine, for example. If it's something like 2-3 weeks, I'd wait a bit.

[doublepost=1551820164][/doublepost]I traded in a MacBook Pro earlier this year. It took about 3 days to receive the trade-in box from Phobio, the third-party company Apple uses to evaluate trade-ins. I then sent it back with the enclosed FedEx label, but it took about 4-5 days to reach them, so they must use FedEx Ground. From the date Phobio said they received my trade-in until they sent me a rebate code by e-mail, 11 days passed. So, I’d give it a solid 18-20 days turnaround. I had no trouble receiving the full value the Apple trade-in site said I should receive, but my machine was in very good condition. I’ve seen several sites with about 50 complaints from people who’s machines were lost or who received much less than anticipated. Again, that was not my experience, but you should do some research in advance.

 

[Cruciarius]

Are you close to an Apple Store? Packing an iMac and shipping it is quite a chore. I recently shipped a 27" iMac to my son who lives in the Atlanta area and it's quite costly to ship and not easy to pack even with the proper materials.

It's a pre-paid shipping label they send you along with "materials to ship", which I assume is a box and some padding to protect it, if you do the Apple trade-in process. Also, not all Apple locations accept in-store trade-ins. The local one near me does not accept them and say to use the site.

[doublepost=1551820164][/doublepost]I traded in a MacBook Pro earlier this year. It took about 3 days to receive the trade-in box from Phobio, the third-party company Apple uses to evaluate trade-ins. I then sent it back with the enclosed FedEx label, but it took about 4-5 days to reach them, so they must use FedEx Ground. From the date Phobio said they received my trade-in until they sent me a rebate code by e-mail, 11 days passed. So, I’d give it a solid 18-20 days turnaround. I had no trouble receiving the full value the Apple trade-in site said I should receive, but my machine was in very good condition. I’ve seen several sites with about 50 complaints about people who’s machines were lost or who received much less than anticipated. Again, that was not my experience, but you should do some research in advance.

Ouch... so almost a month. That sounds painful, but thank you for the info.

As for the complaints, I wonder if those users overlooked something about the trade-in that devalued the computer. Smoke damage, for example, although that's not listed in the options of a trade-in.

 

[Weaselboy]

Ouch... so almost a month. That sounds painful, but thank you for the info.

I went through this last year and just bought my MacBook Pro then sent in the old MBP the next day. Once I got the gift card, I took that with my receipt to the Apple Store and they reversed the original charge, then applied the gift card amount to the price and charged my credit card the difference. You might check if your store is willing to do that for you.

 

[Cruciarius]

I went through this last year and just bought my MacBook Pro then sent in the old MBP the next day. Once I got the gift card, I took that with my receipt to the Apple Store and they reversed the original charge, then applied the gift card amount to the price and charged my credit card the difference. You might check if your store is willing to do that for you.

Oh now that's something I didn't think about. I'll look into that. Thanks!