I would walk five-hundred miles

Or in this case, that would be five-hundred phone calls.

I've been trying to redeem a rebate from Apple for their “Major in Mac” rebate: buy a Mac and get an iPod free (up to $179 off). Well, Apple has been having trouble processing my claim for quite some time now.

First, they didn't want to accept my claim since the MacBook didn't ship until September 21, a few days after the end of the promotion (September 16, I believe)... However, I ordered the MacBook (and iPod) on the same day, September 14.

After talking to an Apple technician, I was able to get that cleared up by her saying, “Just submit it by the hand-written form or set the MacBook's shipping date prior to the end of the promotion.”

~sigh... I felt like I was being told to lie or something. Well, Apple should have all of that information on file anyway.

I ended up submitting the rebate the first week of October, getting closer and closer to the end of my submission window. I still was able to get it in on time, thankfully!

However, on October 28 (late at night), I happened to check Apple.com/promo again to see what the status of the rebate was. “Rejected” was at the top of my browser window. I was so frustrated that as soon as I saw that there was a phone number to call for questions, I immediately dialed it up. I was only slightly relieved when the automated system informed me that I needed to “submit additional information” for my rebate to be processed. Since the promo center was closed by the time I got that message, I called the following day and talked to a tech.

When I talked to the tech, she supplied me with the necessary information about what I needed to submit (the invoice for the iPod seems to have been missing) along with all the required claim numbers and fax numbers. Hopefully, with this additional information, I'll be able to get that rebate check back to me here a little sooner.

The odd thing about this is that the iPod invoice was on the same sheet as the MacBook invoice... It was once invoice for both products. Well, at least I've still got a chance to get that rebate... Fortunately, I was able to reprint the invoices (this time separately) from the Apple website, and the technician I talked to informed me that I can fax in the invoice or wait for the letter to come in the mail and submit the rebate the old fashioned way (envelope-and-stamp method). I'll see if I can fax in the information tomorrow at work though, hopefully that'll get things done faster.

But, I must say, that all these issues I've been having with Apple Promo have been rather infuriating. The last thing I want is for my rebate to be rejected, but I can't wait for all of this dancing around to be done... whatever the outcome.