I'll add to this...
I bought a macbook pro back in my freshman year of college, which was three years ago and paid in full with bowling scholarship. (Get your kids and grandkids into bowling lol.) Anyways, I bought it through the college which means I would get the college warranty. About a month ago my battery was completely dying out, wouldn't even last an hour. So I took it to the Apple store around here, they looked at it, did a full diagnostic. The gentleman said you are under warranty and we will replace it in full, just give me a few minutes. So, I apparently got the warranty from there as well as the one from school, totally forgot about it and was expecting to pay two hundred bucks that day but instead got it fully fixed in ten minutes. Great service from Apple.
Now onto the Bestbuy protection plan...I bought a camera a year ago with the two year replacement plan. About six months later the lens kept freezing up so I took it into the store and filled out the paperwork necessary. I was told if this was a problem they could not find or recreate I would be paying fifty bucks. Well I wouldn't be bringing it in if there was not a problem, but anyways after about a month the camera came back and said they fixed it.
So to wrap it all up, Apple took ten minutes, never had me pay a dime or told me I would need to pay, awesome customer service. Bestbuy on the other hand told me I had to pay fifty bucks if they couldn't find the problem, which was a little unsettling considering the problem only happened twice, and they also took a month to fix. I go to Bestbuy to buy movies and videogames, but if it's an Apple product then get the Applecare.
Sorry for the long response!