Yesterday, my granddaughter took her new MacBook Pro to the Apple store in Boulder, CO and asked for help in running Migration Assistant.

She was subsequently advised that there would be charge for doing that. I have done such in various Apple stores, always without charge. The tech advised that this because there are copyright/data issues when Apple accesses third party data.

Does anyone know if this is a change in policy?

Her best bet would probably be to call AppleCare.

That hasn't happened yet, but it may be this evening.

The APP Mac - North America English doesn't specifically preclude Migration Assistant issues; perhaps it's a function of her specific situation.

Using Migration Assistant is free if you do it yourself regardless of whether any apps involved came from the App Store or from a third party source. The $5 sounds like an Apple Store labor charge. The only labor charge I have encountered was for backing up and subsequently restoring HD contents when sending a computer in for repair or replacement of the HD.