Three Easy Steps
Famous last words: “What could go wrong?”
Three easy steps:
1. Return a phone
2. Get store credit.
3. Buy a new phone.
Three easy steps. What could go wrong?
Prologue
When Apple introduced the iPhone 13 lineup on September 14, I was all eyes on the Sierra Blue 13 Pro. On par with the Pro Max in terms of features and cameras, I was sold. And when the preorders went live on the 19th, I managed to secure the launch day iPhone I wanted.
And over the past few weeks, I loved that phone. The cameras were incredible. ProMotion delightful. And the Sierra Blue colour was sublime! The only thing I was a little rebuffed about was the battery life. It was good and certainly better than the 12 Pro, but I found that I chewed through it faster than I wanted to when I was out taking photos and editing on my device.
This led me to begin eyeballin' the possibility of upgrading to the iPhone 13 Pro Max. I'd played with the possibility of using a MagSafe Battery Pack with the 13 Pro or offloading my editing to an iPad. Still, I continued to gravitate towards moving to the Pro Max. And after humming and hawing for a bit, I made my decision: to go Pro Max.
The return would be easy enough; it was finding a Pro Max - much less a Pro Max in Sierra Blue - that I was having issues with. In Canada, Apple hosts a reservation system for the first few weeks of an iPhone launch where you can put a deposit-free hold on an available phone for up to 24 hours and schedule an in-store pickup. This has been an excellent option for people seeking to buy the iPhone and get it set up in-store with a carrier plan or those (like me) who want to trade in their phone onsite and instantly use the credit towards the new device.
Stock on the reservation system is constantly in flux as holds expire and inventory is replenished. And for the first few days, I 'periodically' (I'll let you decide how often you think I checked) checked the stock, and there wasn't a single Pro Max within 1,000 miles of me. At one point, maybe on the third day, a Gold 128GB Pro Max showed up, but even that was gobbled up within a matter of minutes. The reservation system is a battleground not for the faint at heart.
But on the fourth or fifth day, a Sierra Blue Pro Max appeared at a store less than 30-minutes from me! I blitzed through the reservation system and secured myself a beautiful new Pro Max for pickup the following day! So far, so good. Now here's where the clusterfuck begins.
The Clusterfuck Begineth
We (me and the missus) travelled to the store the morning of the pickup and managed to get in shortly after opening. My phone was wiped, and the return proceeded without issue. I got the amount back in an Apple Gift Card and was asked to come back in an hour to pick up the new iPhone during the reservation window (due to COVID, stores in my area are strict about only offering service within a customers designated window).
While I waited around the mall, I had the bright idea of adding the gift card to my Apple Account Balance. That way, I could pay off the phone with the gift card I had gotten from the return and use a couple of other Apple gift cards I had accumulated to cover the added cost of the Pro Max.
I returned to the store during my window to pay and pick up my new iPhone. I went through all the steps, the device seconds away from being mine, but then things came to a grinding halt when it came to payment.
I learned then that the new Apple Gift Card (which recently merged the iTunes + Apple Store gift cards) could not be used in-store at the point of sale. Once added to my Apple Balance, the gift card can be used online for pickup in-store. It might even be possible to use the Apple Store app to make purchases, but it cannot be used at the point of sale once the gift card is added to your Apple Balance. Previously the old Apple Store gift cards could be scanned into the Wallet app and used interchangeable online or in-store without issue - the balance would update between the two; this is no longer the case. Once a gift card is scanned into your Apple Balance, the card itself stops carrying a balance and can no longer be used.
The other thing I learned was that Apple's reservation stock seems to be slightly separate from their in-store stock, with no ability to move the phone into the online store inventory for in-store pickup purchases through the app. There was no way I could buy the phone sitting right in front of me with the Apple Balance I had.
I was informed that the store would hold the phone for three hours, and in that time, the next best step would be to leave the store call Apple Support to see about reversing the gift card transfer - somehow putting it back onto a new or the existing gift card to use in-store.
I spoke to agent (wrong department) after agent (insufficient clearance level) until I eventually made my way to a senior supervisor. After an hour of tortuous hold music, the verdict was that Apple couldn't reverse the transfer or issue a new card.
At this point, I felt it felt like I was out of options: without a phone and unable to buy the one I wanted.
Shopping Spree
But then an idea: What if we bought something online at the Apple Store for in-store pickup with the Apple Balance and then immediately returned it in-store; would it then be possible to get an in-store gift card for the return? This workaround would essentially transfer the balance from the online balance to a physical gift card through an in-store return. We spoke to a supervisor at the store who had a shaky sense if it would work; it was likely the refund would just automatically return to my online Apple Balance. But he was willing to give it a shot.
We ran the test, ordering an AirTag for $39 with the Apple Balance for pickup within the hour. A second, anxious round of waiting ensued as we waited for the order to be processed for pickup. Forty minutes later, the email came through, and it was back to the Apple Store to see if the refund scheme would work.
Meeting with the supervisor again along with one of the floor salespeople, we started the return process, all anxiously awaiting the window that would list the available return options. And there, in that final window of a process that had started over two hours earlier, was a beautiful blue button: "New Gift Card." At long last, a way out of this gift card quagmire!
But we still had a lot more to spend to transfer the whole balance onto a new gift card. Now we needed to find something(s) that approximated the cost of the iPhone Pro Max and that was available in-store to clear the balance and avoid paying any extra amounts on the credit card. Ultimately we settled on an M1 11" iPad Pro (512GB; Wifi + Cellular). We cleared the checkout process and began another round of waiting for this order to process and become available for pickup. However, this time around, I felt infinitely more relief versus the convoluted uncertainty that had been in the process until this point.
One Last Time
Nothing else climactic happened. The email finally showed up that our iPad was available, we picked it up, returned it, and finally had all the credit back onto two physical gift cards (one from the AirTag return, one from the iPad Pro) that we used against the balance of the phone.
Three hours since we pulled up at the mall, the process of exchanging and picking up a new iPhone 13 Pro Max was complete. Phone in hand, we hopped back into the car and drove home. I named my new phone 'Lucky.'
Epilogue
The case I ran into was an example of bad luck. Few countries have Canada's iPhone reservation system (I checked, and the US, UK, and Australia all don't). And Canada is also the only country outside the US & Japan with the merged iTunes/Apple Store gift cards. For this to happen in another country would not be possible since it required these two services to butt up in just the wrong way to create such a convoluted bit of reverse engineering to undo.
But yes… I absolutely love my choice to move up to the 13 Pro Max!
