Monday, September 10, 2012

Apple - Back to School (BTS) 2012

Hey All

Apple's back to School promotion is about to come to an end on 21 September 2012 for the current year.

Those who are unaware of what exactly Back to School (BTS) promotion is; Apple every year runs a promotion for students, whereby those students who are studying at a recognised institute / university / college / school are allowed to purchase Mac at Education Pricing scheme, the discounts vary generally from 6% to 15% depending on the products that you are buying, and there are no discounts for iPhones / iPods (I guess).

Check this out for more info on Apple Education Pricing UK.



Ok, so now the Back to School promotion is that students who buy Apple products (Mac Computers and iPads) directly from Apple Education Store, shall get a student gift card of £70 (for qualifying Mac computers) or £35 (for qualifying iPads).
Here is Apple's website link for Back to School Promotion



Now, this is only available for qualifying students (studying in qualifying institutes), however there are ways around it if you are willing to buy a Mac or an iPad but you are not a student.

Some of the basic ways would be:

  • If there are kids at your home, purchase the Mac under their name, and provide their valid student id cards that could prove that they are students at a qualifying institute / university / school, etc.
  • If there are no kids at your home, may be you have some close reliable relatives, reason I am saying "reliable" is because the Mac product would be on their name, i.e. they would be the legal owner of the product according to the bills / receipts / documentation by Apple, so you don't want to buy on someone's name who would later on file a theft complaint against you in local police station, and anyways, it is not advisable to engage in such activities, as once caught, could really result in drastic legal steps and so on..

  • Now, if you are a student but your institute / university / college does not qualify as a valid education institution in the lists of Apple and if you have no kids at your home neither any relatives, the one last thing I could suggest specially for those living in UK (and having a UK residential address), is NUS Extra Card.

NUS stands for (National Union of Students), I am myself an ACCA student and ACCA is a world known professional accountancy body (not an education institution), and I took my tuitions for ACCA from a private institute which although has worldwide presence, it still does not qualify as a valid education institution according to Apple. So NUS card came in handy for me.

To my surprise, while surfing through available discounts on NUS Extra website, it showed Apple Education Discount - 15% off Mac products with Apple under Education Pricing




This card costs somewhere around £12 and gives you a whole lot of discounts throughout UK which includes tons of eating, shopping, travelling, household purchases, etc discounts and could be purchased at Buy Online - NUS Extra




And hence, I not only got a discount of 15% on my Macbook Pro (Early 2011 Model) but also got a £65 gift card under Back to School Promotion 2011.

If you wish to check who all are eligible for NUS Extra Card, check out their Eligibility Criteria and if still unsure see Card FAQs.
If you just want to see whether your institute is listed in the list of education institutions of NUS team, just start ordering NUS Extra Card, before you make the payment you will get an option to select your Institution and provide with valid student id number / etc. there you can verify if your institution is listed.

So guys, hurry up, get yourself a Mac / iPad before the discount ends! Have fun....

2 comments:

  1. Did they give you a code to use on the website or did you have to collect your card first to use it? The offer ends tomorrow!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I received a gift card along with my Mac Book Pro, that gift card had a gift code in it, which once I put in iTunes Store, I got £65 of credit in my iTunes Account.

      Delete

Please comment here!

Google+