The Apple Card ‘free’ AirPods Pro 3 deal isn’t as great as it seems

Apple announced a new promotion this week that seems too good to be true: Sign up for a new Apple Card and get a pair of AirPods Pro 3 for free. That sounds great (no pun intended), but take a closer look at the fine print, and it’s not nearly as generous as it seems.

To start, notice that you don’t actually get AirPods Pro 3 free. You have to buy them, and then you eventually get reimbursed by Apple. It says as much right in the big banner at the top of the Apple Card signup page.

For a limited time, earn back the cost of AirPods Pro 3, up to $250 total Bonus Daily Cash. Get a new Apple Card and buy AirPods Pro 3 at Apple by June 15. Starting July 1, each month you make 10+ purchases you’ll earn $25 Bonus Daily Cash, through April 30, 2027.*

Apple

Oh, what’s that? An asterisk? Let’s just scroll down to the fine print and find out what that asterisk is all about…

Obviously, this is a promotion to get new applicants, so it doesn’t apply to anyone who already has an Apple Card. If you’re new to Apple Card, you have to apply for a new Apple Card, be approved, and then use that Apple Card to buy AirPods Pro 3 directly from Apple by June 15. You will then earn $250 in “bonus Daily Cash” equal to the cost of your AirPods Pro 3, minus sales tax and any other fees (you’re on the hook for that). Also, the AirPods need to be new, so you can’t buy a refurbished set, or different AirPods, or buy in bulk.

You can, however, use the various purchase options tied to Apple Card, including paying in installments, and a trade-in offer won’t affect your eligibility.

Daily Cash is one of Apple’s signature features, where the cashback you earn is deposited into a virtual Apple Cash card or the Apple Card’s high-yield savings account each day as your purchases clear. Most Apple Pay purchases give you 2-3 percent cash back.

So the cost of the AirPods Pro 3 you purchase will be reimbursed to you as a one-time Daily Cash bonus? No problem, you’ll just pay them off right away and avoid the interest, right? Sorry, it’s paid to you at the rate of $25 per month over 10 months, from July 1, 2026, through April 30, 2027.

What’s more, you have to use your Apple Card to make at least 10 purchases each month (of at least $0.01). If you use the Apple Card Family feature to add family members to your account with other family members, their purchases will not count toward the 10 you need to make. You’ll also need to watch out for multiple purchases from a single vendor that get bundled into a single purchase. The App Store does this: make several in-app purchases within one or two days, and your card will usually be billed only once. Those bundle purchases only count as a single transaction for this.

The $25 of bonus daily cash is earned and deposited in your account after your 10th purchase each month. The fine print does not say what happens if you make fewer than 10 purchases in a month, but it would appear that you simply don’t get your $25 that month, but you can resume getting the $25 bonus in future months by making 10 or more purchases. You’ll just run out of time to get your full $250 back before the promotion ends.

In short, you don’t actually get a free pair of AirPods Pro 3. You have to buy them first, and then you need to make a lot of purchases with your new Apple Card every month for almost a year to get paid back the purchase price.

As is always the case with credit cards, nothing is actually free; the bank will extract the value of whatever you think you’re getting for free one way or the other.

Apple Card is a perfectly reasonable cashback credit card with no fees, especially if you buy a lot of Apple stuff. If you were going to get an Apple Card anyway and you know you are going to use it about three times a week for the next year, and you can pay off those AirPods Pro 3 before you start racking up monthly interest, then there’s no reason not to take advantage of this offer. But the stipulations and conditions on this promotion should probably not convince anyone to get Apple Card that wasn’t already going to do it anyway.