Gotta love applecare

[HowEver]

Apple has been making more and more exceptions for battery problems in recent months. Expect that to continue. Remember, it's always better to ask a genius what they can do for you than assume the worst.

[G-Mo]

If you present with a non-consumed (less than 1000 cycles), non-user replaceable battery machine to Apple or an AASP, 99% of the time, it will get replaced, with or without AppleCare, and beyond the one year limited warranty.

[andreww]

Like everything in the apple world, its kind of the luck of the draw. One person gets stuff covered while another person with the same problem doesn't. Even the genius mentioned to me that batteries are a grey area. He did run some test on mine though which showed that it had worn in a premature manner. I believe the threshold was 80% at 500 cycles. Mine hit 80% at only 433 cycles, thus it was deemed defective.