American Express may cover iPhone price drop under price protection plan
September 9, 2007 – 3:33 pmWord on the street is that American Express will cover the iPhone price drop under their price protection plan, depending on which card and related services you have.
[via Zeus Jones]
Also, because of AT&T’s 14 day return policy, you might be able to return your phone and get credit for the price difference.
[via Crunchgear]
For most cards, price protection is an additional service, either as an annual or monthly fee and is calculated as a percentage of the amount charged to the card.
I used to have an American Express card but we decided to focus our charges on two main cards in order to maximize our rewards: (Discover and Marriott Rewards Premier Visa card). The Marriott Rewards card has an annual fee ($65), but with as much travel as Lora was doing for business, it has paid for itself many times over with free trips and other travel upgrades we’ve received along the way.
Apple announced they will be providing a a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store.
Not sure how the $100 credit will play out with the return policy and credit card protection plans, but I can guarantee there will be thousands of blog posts tracking early adopter and consumer feedback.
As I said in other posts (1 & 2), I have mixed feelings about the iPhone price drop, but as an Apple shareholder, I noticed the market response with a 5% price drop on announcement day.
I’m interested to see how this plays out for Apple, Amex and other credit card companies. For current iPhone holders, there is lots of anxiousness to hear more about the $100 credit.
In my conversations with other iPhone holders, most of them have said that they would use the $100 credit towards another device purchase, such as AppleTV or one of the new iPods.
So who’s to say that Apple didn’t have this idea in their back pocket all along, knowing that complaints were going to surface very quickly on the net, and that they would need to respond quickly.
I think the negative sentiment over the iPhone experience will quickly subside when early adopters are redeeming their $100 credit.
Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, American Express, AMEX, price protection
One Response to “American Express may cover iPhone price drop under price protection plan”
I’m getting apple tv with my $100 credit. And I probably wouldn’t have had it not been for the credit, so if that was their strategy from the beginning then I’m falling right into the trap.
To me the credit is just a nice gesture. I don’t feel that they are in any way obligated to give them out. No one got ripped off, they spent the amount that the product was worth to them at the time (and some people paid much more than $599 on ebay).
I think this issue shines a light on some much more fundamental issues concerning our society in general. Just imagine if the price of the iphone had been raised by $200, what would the reaction of the people who bought them at $599 had been in that case? I think it would obviously be happiness. And I don’t think it’s because they are looking at their phone as an asset that has appreciated.
Same people, same product, same price but opposite emotions… i can’t fully develop my thoughts on here but i think this issue definitely reveals some things about our society and i don’t think they are good.
By Chris Kammerer on Sep 10, 2007