EDIT: This thread was formerly titled "New Rebates".
Ok, it's been a while since I updated this thread. Mostly bc it's a hassle to keep up w/ the changing links. That and I thought I'd give a review of some of the better Mac buying options out there.
Price Grid
One of the sites I regularly check is AppleInsider, check their Price Guides for listings of various online vendors and models. The sweetest deals I have seen recently are through B&H Photo. The MacMall link-thru coupons give you a lower total price but B&H offers you AppleCare for some ridiculous prices and often offers Parallels for free with a Mac purchase. A recent price check for a friend found the base 2.4Ghz i5 MBP with AppleCare bundled for only $95 and Parallels 7 for free. The reason the AppleCare is such a good deal is that Apple sells it for $249 at retail and $183 with Academic pricing. I typically advise people that AppleCare is optional on the front end, as you can upgrade anytime within the standard 1 year warranty, but with a price of almost half of what the academic discount gives you it's almost dumb not to get it up front. That said, you have to weigh and balance the vendors and what their prices are as compared with the potential sales taxes that may or may not be involved with your location.
Apple Academic
Apple academic is basically the cheapest way for a new BTO (Built to order) system and becomes an especially sweet deal when they run the back-to-school promo for a Mac+free iDevice ($ value varies), which you can usually combine with the seemingly endless $100 rebates on new printers. Typically these all have to be purchased on the same receipt, and through an Apple store or an Apple academic reseller.
Apple Refurbished
The only option that tends to beat the options from the Price Grid on stock systems are the refurbished Macs which come with the usual 1 year limited warranties, just like the new ones. Many people have been pleased w/ these systems. You can also find some systems which might be tweaked in re: to RAM and hard drive and also beat Amazon's prices. I have a friend who picked up a fully loaded MacBook Air at ~$300 off the real price, IIRC. Don't take my word on this last part, but afaik, you could also take advantage of the refurbished prices as well as the back-to-school promo of the free iDevice + $100 Printer, seeing as how you can access the same refurbished systems through Apple's online academic store.
Developer's Discount
Also an option is the developer's discount of 20%. Be careful of how you use this as you'll have to pay the $99 purchase fee. It's best used on the high end Macs and I'll demonstrate why. On say, a base MacBook you would go through all of the gobbledygook just to get the discount and after you factor in the $99 fee and taxes you'd end up w/ a cost of ~$1031 (@ 6% sales tax). Meanwhile, the relatively painless process of an Amazon purchase would get you the price of $1024.99 after rebate. As noted, he developer's discount and associated purchase fee makes the biggest difference on high end systems.
All said, do your math and buy accordingly. 
