When shopping for a new computer recently, prices were the same across the board for the most part. If you qualify for the educational discount, Apple was significantly cheaper. If you didn't there were some sites that tended to have credit card portals or gift card reseller sites that offered more of a discount. Even when a portal says certain products are excluded they tend to still come through with the automated discount.

Also depending on your credit card you could get a better deal through buying your own gift cards. I currently have five percent off on grocery store purchases, so effectively any gift cards the grocery store sells are five percent discounts to the merchant. Best buy, target, Amazon are nearly always there. ITunes usually is but I don't ever recall seeing apple.