Just to clarify the mistaken belief that I had and clearly many other have had is that Apple's apparent charge on your card is most likely a "Temporary Authorization"
Chase describes a Temporary Authorization as follows:
----------------------
We've authorized the transactions in the Temporary Authorizations section, but not yet processed them for payment. Once processed, these transactions will appear in your Posted Activity section and will be reflected in your balance.
The dollar amount of your temporary authorizations may vary from the final posted amount for a purchase. This is common for merchants that validate your card for an amount that is not yet finalized. For example, hotel, restaurant, gas station and car rental merchants often do not have the final amount when your card is presented for payment.
Temporary authorizations will be deducted from your available credit, but will not be reflected in your balance until they are processed. Additionally, merchant names may appear blank under the description in cases where this information is not available until a transaction is posted.
---------------------------------------
So given that many people seem to now think that our custom orders will not go out until Feb 28, that means that although our credit cards haven't been "charged" per se, Apple has reduced your available credit by the cost of your machine for a couple of weeks. While not quite the same as charging your card before merchandise ships, it's not far from it.
