Agree, the pricing isn't correct (accidental damage is $299 for macs across the board) and every time I've sent a device off for service they always tell me to either back up my data or wipe the device myself.
$450 is their flat repair and its what I almost always am quoted when I bring in a laptop.
Where's this listed? I see the $299 number quoted in several places on their website.
This was on 2022-12-31 in Canada so the price was in CAD. That's what they charged her.
AppleCare+ tier pricing in Canada is, and has been since day one, $129 or $379 depending on severity of the damage.
How do you backup the data when it won't turn on and they don't have hardrives that you can remove? The data is stored on a chip on the motherboard.
Time Machine and an external SSD (they're really cheap now!). With the soldered storage you definitely don't want to have your only copy of important data on the device itself.
I don't think it is unreasonable to expect Apple to be able to recover data.