Cycle to work scheme

My brother has finally managed to secure a Cycle to Work (C2W) scheme offer from his employer after a lot of back and forth. He needs to select it in his benefits portal by 20th December. The scheme is through Cyclescheme and seems to have a £1,600 limit.

As someone who hasn’t used the C2W scheme before but wants to give him some useful advice, I’ve been looking at complete bikes within that price range. To be honest, the options don’t seem too promising—maybe I’m looking in the wrong places or just have higher expectations.

Should he go ahead and claim the voucher as soon as possible? That way, I presume he’ll have more time to shop around and potentially benefit from January sales. Would be great to hear from anyone who's had experience of this before.

The limit, is well er, limiting.

If he knows he is going to get a bike in the next few weeks, then of course he should, and look for a bike and accessories as close to the limit as possible. It may take his payroll a few weeks to catch up.

If he is umming and ahhing, it seems odd to have an arbitrary date - has the scheme only appeared as a one month trial or do his payroll team need to understand all amounts by the 20th Dec? In other words is there no scheme next year (2025)?

The limit will be set by his employer rather than the cycle scheme, it might be worth asking if it can be increased, I have recently done this successfully through mine.

In relation to waiting for January sales be aware some shops will add on a fee to claw back margin if the bike is not being sold at RRP.

I’ve been in company schemes that only opened once a year, and if you missed the deadline you had to wait another 12 months, so would be worth confirming with employer if that is the nature of this scheme or if maybe it has a cutoff date for applications on each new month (to align with payroll admin etc in that month). I always took the approach to get a voucher that was either at the limit, or based on a specific bike I knew I would buy +£x and then spending surplus on accessories and clothing (I usually end up with tubes, tyres , bags, bottles, cages, cycle computers etc) to make up to voucher total or within a few pence of it

Also

• to the point about getting voucher in advance, I think they tend to have an expiry date but it is not something they have ever enforced in my experience, and when I have had a long wait before using the voucher I just had to contact the scheme provider at the expiry date to ask them to extend it due to long lead time on a bike I was buying, as the shop would not accept the voucher until bike was in stock ready to build and deliver
  

you can always "top-up" the amount .
if the voucher is for £1600, pay extra if bike costs more.
my current cyclescheme paid £5000 which wasn't enough LOL

my other halfs emloyer limit is £10k...

my current cyclescheme paid £5000 which wasn't enough LOL>
my other halfs emloyer limit is £10k.

Stop it, I had to plead to get a £3k limit! Well done mr and mrs blomokk

haha mines over 36months...i'm looking for a new job so I will have to pay back rest if i leave...that will be painfull LOL

what everyone has to remember, that shops add additional charge if you want to buy bike on sale with cyclescheme....
my bike was £1250 cheaper on sale but I had to pay 5% of price on top as it was a sale item..still cheaper though

Aside from Halfords and Tredz, where can you use Cycle2Work scheme?

If you leave, you lose the tax discount benefit, the balance is deducted from your net pay.
(things to consider)

My work benefits window has just opened at work and I noticed there's now a 24month option for the cycle to work scheme, that sounds like a good idea.

Balfes in London as well as independent shops listed here
https://www.cycle2work.info/bg_C2WStoreMap

*NB the map is out of date but the simpler way to ask your preferred retailer whether they take it. Some charge a surcharge, some don't.

Just going through my c2w order from last year and im confused a bit...

So the total cost over 12 months after all deductions was £385.32 - and i ended up paying £566.28 over 12 months

Am i being stupid or did my work try to mug me off (once again)

depends on provider, but most outlets, including online only with my work

some admin cost, but also depends how did you end your contract, buy now or buy later etc.

I opted in for the extended hire at no extra cost

Just baffled to why it says my total cost over 12 months is £385.32 and i ended up paying extra £180 on top of that

Ill call the hr tomorrow, but they are quite clueless

If you calculate how much tax you saved by reducing your earnings by £566.28, does it come to £180?