Quick question, do they or do they not accept non-US credit cards? Store is down for the moment.

Are all major credit cards not multi-national - immaterial of country or bank of issue, or place of purchase?

I can't believe that Apple would be any different.

They won't. If you know someone in the US who can buy it for you and mail it, that would work.

It's not the credit card per se, it's all the taxes and billing address blah blah blah that get in the way.

Sorry, yes, I meant billing address.

They do but the billing and delivery address cant be a NON US one.

Apple will only accept a credit card where the issue country & credit card address is the same.

I have lived in CH for 17 years, I have UK & US cards registered in CH, however none are acceptable to Apple. A French card registered in France is, however only for the French store, so many apps I want are not available.

It's been that way forever. You can only buy on each national on-line store that caters for where you live / are registered. Buying through a pal in the US is certainly the best and cheapest way to buy from the domestic US store as poptart has stated. The next bit is getting it sent over here, but there are plenty of other threads about customs and shipping charges, so happy searching.

OK; then a follow up question. I could order a MacBook with my Swiss-registered CC and have it delivered to my BiL in NYC for us to collect when we're there. I can configure the keyboard and manual to be French, but would this be QWERTY or AZERTY? I've read conflicting reports.

I'm not sure if that would work. You know it won't if the on-line store doesn't give you a country option or insists on a US state entry. Again, the easiest way is through a friend. You can have any keyboard combination ordered if you're shopping on-line or by calling the sales hotline, I've done QWERTZ Swiss keyboards from the US and QWERTY American English from here in Switzerland.

Store is back up:
"The Apple Online Store U.S. accepts credit, debit, or check cards associated with a billing address within the 50 United States and the following U.S. territories:"

So that's pretty clear then

So 50 states, Puerto Rico, bits of Afghanistan, Iraq and coming soon, a favorite North African destination and maybe a PX store in Yemen.

If you have family in NY, if they go up for leaf peeping, just have them pop into an Apple Store in NH as it's sales tax-free up there, too. You could also order from Amazon and have it delivered to NY I think, but the options are much more limited in terms of products. Also, I think NY is a sales tax state for Amazon unfortunately.

Also, heading into xmas time is not the time to buy a mac generally as they rarely bump the product line before xmas so a lot of people wait until MW in Feb when the one you want is a couple hundred bucks cheaper (or maybe they introduce more of something you want in the new model).

The card also has to be a US card!

Thanks for all the feedback. We've decided to just wait till nearer Christmas and buy it locally. What with the rising $ and NYC sales tax, we would pay more or less the same in FNAC with our one-off 6% FNAC card discount. On top of that, Daughter #2 will get the keyboard layout she needs for school. Chances are, FNAC will have other pre-Christmas promotions like last year.

you can get round it be getting a US credit card and a US address. search for the amazon app store, people were doing this to get access to the amazon store as it was (is?) US only.

AZERTY is the FRENCH (as in France) keyboard.

QWERTZ (notice the Z on the end) is the standard for the SWISS French keyboard.

You normally can just select the one you would need from the list. Since you are in CH, you would choose the Swiss French version. When typing on an American keyboard, you will need to remember that the Z and Y are backwards and where all the accents are found (lower right of keyboard).

Erh, why not just order the computer with a US keyboard? All of Apples keyboard dependent products can be ordered with both a local variation OR a US International keyboard... Don't understand what the big fuss is about?

Besides, you can always "pop" the key's off and swap them around if you want so move the Y to Z and vice verca and you're golden