I decided to give my iPad 3 Cellular to a relative as it was only something like £38 that Apple would give for it. Didn’t even think to check the trade in value of my 5s. Must have been thinking that you could only trade iPads for iPads, oops.
I see you're in the UK so the official trade-in policy might be different from ours here in the USA, but this is what I learned from my experience:
First I went to the Giveback webpage, entered the Serial #'s for my four devices and answered the few questions about each one. My devices showed signs of wear, but nothing to suggest abuse. This gave me the following "trade-in" values, subject to change of course:
iPad Mini 2, 16GB, WiFi - $76
iPhone 6, 16GB - $90
iPhone 5S, 32GB - $40
Watch Series 3 Sport, 42MM, LTE - $153
What they don't tell you on the website is that each device you bring to the store for trade-in has three levels of "value" depending on how you choose to conduct business with Apple after the trade --which I'll get to later-- oh they also don't mention that they can only accept ONE device for credit towards immediate purchase of a new device, per transaction. You are also allowed to use as many gift cards to pay off the remaining balance of a transaction. Bear in mind the subtle difference of "trading-in" your device (limit of 1 per transaction) into an immediate purchase versus accepting a gift card offer for use at a future date....
So we went through the tedious task of checking each device's serial # into their database, and fortunately for me, we discovered the iPhone 6 could be worth up to $150 if I chose that device for credit towards the purchase of a new device (Mini 5). Otherwise, I could accept a gift card instead for $90. I don't remember what the third option was nor it's value.
I don't remember what the credit-towards-purchase value was for the 5S or Mini 2, but they were each less than the $150 I'd get for the iPhone 6. Strangely however, they noted that the Watch had a value of $153 across the three different levels. This is where the employee offered a strategy that I was too sleep deprived at the time to have thought of on my own: despite the Watch being the most valuable at $153, there was no difference and thus no penalty no matter what you did afterwards. The iPhone 6 however, was valued at $150 towards an immediate purchase, OR as a $90 store gift card for any future purchase. Now it's obvious that is a large penalty (-$60) to incur for choosing to go the Gift Card route.
So my happy ending was tallied as such:
iPad Mini 5 - $399 + tax
iPhone 6 16gb (-$150)
Watch 3LTE (-$153)
Mini 2 16gb (-$76)
iPhone 5S 32gb (-$40)
Remaining Balance - $19.91
I hope that info helps someone out there which a bunch of devices with severely degraded batteries like I did
