What a day! Got to the Apple Store and did my pickup but of course there's always something...
The store rep that I got was trying to tell me I had to turn in my 12 Pro Max today in order to take advantage of my carrier's trade-in financing offer, or otherwise I would have to mail it in. I told him the confirmation email that comes directly from Apple doesn't say anything about being forced to mail your phone in unless you trade-in at pickup. I went through with doing my checkout as a mail-in so I didn't lose the promotion but I was fuming as he was just completely unapologetic about making s*** up and not knowing what he was talking about.
I got an Apple CS rep on the phone while I was still in the store and they told me they had no idea why I wouldn't be able to trade my phone in at any point between now and 2 weeks from now just like the email says and they asked to speak to the store rep. Luckily I spotted the guy who tried to help me with my last issue with my original pre-order and he told me what the Apple CS rep told me -- you can bring our phone in any time you want as long as it's in the 2-week trade-in window.
I say all this to say for those who deal with in-store shenanigans: don't let someone tell you something that their parent company is directly contradicting in writing, no matter what. I will be enjoying making sure I have everything I need on my new phone and trading my old phone in at some point in the next few days at my leisure thank you very much.
Set up and re-logging in to all my apps is almost done, pics still to come!