Difference between Costco Warranty and AppleCare?

I think some Apple owners are like some Trump voters - stuck with an expensive purchase, and ashamed to admit it knowing the ridicule that will follow. The rest cannot ever see any flaw.

Don't you just hate it you have to make an appointment with the genius bar to have your apple product to be looked at, can't just pop in and have it dealt with by their army of geniuses, even if they're free and not dealing with any other customers.

Apple care has some accident damage in it Costco doesn’t

AppleCare+ is an insurance product that provides up to two years of expert technical support1 and hardware coverage2 for AirPods, Beats earphones or Beats headphones, including up to two incidents of accidental damage, each subject to an excess fee of £25.3 In addition, you’ll get 24/7 priority access to Apple experts via chat or phone. Coverage begins on your AppleCare+ purchase date. (edited)

Applecare (based on genuine experience with a £2,000 macbook pro) consists of

'upgrade to the latest version of software'
'we don't sell that any more'
'it's been dropped'
'go queue at the Genius bar'. At the genius bar, they will fiddle and then tell you it needs a complete rebuild - you have backed up your data haven't you/I can sell you a massively overpriced external HDD to back up your data. A Genius has less skill and less access than any experienced Windows user.

and my personal favourite - 'batteries are not covered' That they can explode/catch fire and are so obviously a manufacturing issue has escaped Apple's responsibility. Apple didn't get to have a savings account with 00s of billions in it by doing silly things like warranty give aways

You are very, very unlikely to get an Apple owner saying bad things about Apple. After all, they have paid so much for it they have to like it.


Costco (again based on personal experience but over decades). It's a members club, not a shop.

'anything wrong with it?' followed by 'please put your card int he machine'

Last year, I took back a 3 year old Dyson that (as with many Dyson goods) is overpriced and over sold. In probably 20 years of using Costco, I've never had a problem returning things in or out of warranty. I believe they do cancel your membership if you are obviously taking the michael.

The often seen confusion over definition of return / cancellation / warranty / guarantee / mandatory / statutory / gesture of goodwill / written policy / enforced policy / normal but informal policy / random unexplainable policy is hilarious. It is most frequently seen with Amazon purchases but will equally apply to Costco purchases.

OP: if you expect to have a Costco "6 years return policy" you ideally need to obtain a copy of that policy prior to purchase and read it to understand what it may and may not provide.
Any 6 year policy is a golden marketing coup and a merchant will be falling over themselves to provide you with a copy of it to give you motivation and confidence to make a purchase. But you won't be able to categorically confirm what the policy provides until you obtain a copy of it; otherwise when your purchase has an issue xx years after some colourful verbal rambling of a Costco salesperson it is going to be difficult to prove what the salesperson said.

You can of course read the rather dull Consumer Rights Act 2015 that identifies you have 6 years to make a claim for faulty goods and the provisos related to product quality / durability.
If you live in Scotland you may want to move to another part of the UK prior to puchase as Scotland facilitates only 5 years entitlement to bring a claim.
Product quality expectations defined from section 9.2 of the Act at legislation.gov.uk/ukp…n/9
6/5 years period within note 105 at legislation.gov.uk/ukp…tes

You can read t&c for Applecare+ and excess fees here: apple.com/leg…uk/

Update for anyone reading, AirPods broke 10 days before Apple care was about to expire. Couldn’t afford to keep them and Costco phone support just said bring them back no problem! Totally worth the membership!

I bought my daughter Air at costco on black Friday 2019., now in the early fall of 2021 it stopped working. Called costco and they give an incredible ran around. I noticed that costco gets things specially made for, i am not sure if the apple also makes special costco computers , but judging by this experience i will never buy any electronic from costco.