Buying a MacBook with Educational Discount

I’m in the market to buy an M1 MacBook Air and wanted to ask about peoples experience with the education discount.

I’m working in Canada at the moment where MacBooks are about 7-9% cheaper and before my visa expires I thought I could take advantage of that.
I also have a friend who is a student… get where I’m going with this?

The student price of the configuration I want in Canada is CA$1,953 (16gb RAM, 512 SSD).
The full price back in Australia is AU$2,249 (as I don’t know anyone who is a student in AU).
That’s a whopping 15% discount compared to if I buy the laptop back in Australia.
Note: even when you do currency conversion it still works out much cheaper in Canada

My question is:

  • If my friend buys the laptop using student discount, how easy is it to transfer ownership to me (a non-student) without setting off any alarms? Should we wait a few months to make it less suss?
  • Also does anyone know how that would work with AppleCare+ ??
  • Lastly does anyone know the risk of getting stung by customs when I get home to AU to pay GST – by that point it would be 6-7mths old so surely there isn’t a risk right?

Comments

  • Get your friend to buy it for you, as can set it up for yourself. Anyway, you don’t need to be a student to buy at student price. Parents can buy to. If you say that you are a student, they will sell to you too, no proof is required. At least that is how it works in Australia. Maybe walk into a store and just tell them that you are a student and buy. You actually even buy online from Apple education store, I don’t think they verify if you are genuinely a student.

    • Yeah, I bought a laptop last year with a student discount. I had the student ID in PDF format ready to upload & the online store purchasing process never asked for it. I thought it was a bit strange.

      • Sometimes they ask, but very rarely.

    • Omg what? Lmfao
      I’ll try a dummy run tomorrow. That seems so odd

  • I walked in a bought a Mac and they asked for student ID

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