Wow, I just spent 25 minutes on the phone with Apple Support. It was very professional and pleasant, even the time spent on hold listening to the likes of Moby and some groovy R&B, but completely unnecessary.
A word to the wise — allow for shipping time so your AppleCare Protection Program box arrives before your limited warranty expires, or just do the upgrade over the phone in the first place.
I bought a Mac mini a year ago and use it as a file server and central backup device for my network. Apple sent me a nice note a few weeks ago that my 1 year limited warranty was about to expire — would I like to purchase an AppleCare Protection Plan and extend my coverage another two years? I really like my mini and it's a crucial part of my business, so sure! But of course, Platforms took my attention for a few weeks, and I remembered on the last day of my mini's coverage that I needed to renew.
No problem I thought, it was still Oct. 6 in Cupertino, so I hopped on to apple.com/support, paid them my money, and expected to receive a "thanks for extending" message, or at least an email containing the magic enrollment number which I could plug in to the APP signup page. Instead, they had to ship something to me. Uh oh.
I received the box today, so I went to enroll online. But it wouldn't let me and told me to call Apple Support. After a 20 minute game of giving my serial number, then holding, then giving the contract number, then holding, then being asked where I bought the mini, then holding, then told I needed to fax the APP receipt to Apple (which I had just *bought* from Apple), then holding, then giving my APP web order number, hold, APP enrollment number (second time I gave it), hold, APP serial number from the box, hold, then a big hold for 5 minutes — finally I was told without fanfare that I was all set and to expect confirmation in the mail in two weeks.
I was ready to fight, but thankfully didn't have to. After all, I'm probably throwing $161.48 (pesky NY sales tax) straight into their bank account, as I've only ever needed service on my macs 4 times in 27 years of Mac ownership. (One was on a Mac Plus, the other 3 were laptops.) And if you wanted to get technical, I did purchase my plan before the limited warranty expired. But even so, I'm not trying to sneak in a few extra days, just add two years to the original expiration date and we're all happy.
Even tho I presented her with a bit of a gray-area problem, I have to think some fat could be trimmed from their process. What does 25 minutes of Phone Support Girl's time cost Apple, I wonder?