cycle to work scheme

[glennjamin]

Contemplating buying an Electric mountain bike. Can someone confirm the rules please. As I see it you can only purchase a bike to the value of £1000. Problem is the bike I interested in is in the region of £3000. Can you get the £1000 voucher and take it off the £3000 purchase price leaving you with £2000 to pay up front ?

Thanks in advance !

[Scrump]

Different schemes have different values. My employer used to be on a scheme with £1000 limit, they switched to a different scheme which seems to have no max limit (?).
Are you sure your employers scheme has the £1000 cap?

[magpie215]

Voucher has to cover the full price of the bike...you can't top up

[mike9009]

glennjamin said:

Contemplating buying an Electric mountain bike. Can someone confirm the rules please. As I see it you can only purchase a bike to the value of £1000. Problem is the bike I interested in is in the region of £3000. Can you get the £1000 voucher and take it off the £3000 purchase price leaving you with £2000 to pay up front ?

Thanks in advance !

The limit is put on by your employer. Speak nicely to them and they may increase it....... My employer is only a small firm but have funded four bikes (all over £2k).

[justin220]

magpie215 said:

Voucher has to cover the full price of the bike...you can't top up

I was able to top mine up when it had a £1k limit.

[the-norseman]

When I got mine, the limit was £1500, the bike shop allowed me to buy a £1700 bike with it and I topped up the £300.

[Snatch1]

magpie215 said:

Voucher has to cover the full price of the bike...you can't top up

That's not necessarily true. It may be the rules, I don't know without checking, but plenty of bike shops will accept cycle to work as part payment on a bike that is more than the value of the voucher - 2 of the 3 bikes I've bought through the scheme have been more than the voucher value

[glennjamin]

Thank you responses got some research to do now !!

[wpa1975]

magpie215 said:

Voucher has to cover the full price of the bike...you can't top up

That is completely wrong info, you can buy a bike for more and just pay the difference between the voucher value.

[vexed]

wpa1975 said:

magpie215 said:

Voucher has to cover the full price of the bike...you can't top up

That is completely wrong info, you can buy a bike for more and just pay the difference between the voucher value.

Only if the vendor agrees (the vast majority but not all do)
By the letter of the rules the value should cover the whole bike.
Maximum value is set by your employer and the scheme provider. Always worth asking if it can be increased- it is no skin off your employer's nose

[Julian Scott]

justin220 said:

magpie215 said:

Voucher has to cover the full price of the bike...you can't top up

I was able to top mine up when it had a £1k limit.

Friend of mine has just got a £9k Factor Ostro VAM on his RTW scheme - it is his business though ;-)

[Super Sonic]

the-norseman said:

When I got mine, the limit was £1500, the bike shop allowed me to buy a £1700 bike with it and I topped up the £300.

The bike shop did well!

[paulrockliffe]

Super Sonic said:

the-norseman said:

When I got mine, the limit was £1500, the bike shop allowed me to buy a £1700 bike with it and I topped up the £300.

The bike shop did well!

Ha ha.

The reason why the bike shop *shouldn't* do that is that the bike is being bought by the employer for the employee. By accepting money from the employee the ownership becomes more complicated, possibly to the extent that it would remove the right to use salary sacrifice at all if it was challenged.

[deja.vu]

wpa1975 said:

magpie215 said:

Voucher has to cover the full price of the bike...you can't top up

That is completely wrong info, you can buy a bike for more and just pay the difference between the voucher value.

When did you last buy a bike on the scheme?
I did a few weeks ago, and they absolutely refused to allow me to top it up.

[peew]

deja.vu said:

When did you last buy a bike on the scheme?
I did a few weeks ago, and they absolutely refused to allow me to top it up.

In the past many shops allowed you to do this, the guidelines changed and now you are not allowed to.

However some independent shops may allow you to top up.

It's made it quite a lot more awkward as if your employer is slow at giving you the voucher, the bike may no longer be in stock. You would then have to find an alternative cheaper bike, adding accessories to use up the whole value of the voucher

[deja.vu]

peew said:

deja.vu said:

When did you last buy a bike on the scheme?
I did a few weeks ago, and they absolutely refused to allow me to top it up.

In the past many shops allowed you to do this, the guidelines changed and now you are not allowed to.

However some independent shops may allow you to top up.

It's made it quite a lot more awkward as if your employer is slow at giving you the voucher, the bike may no longer be in stock. You would then have to find an alternative cheaper bike, adding accessories to use up the whole value of the voucher

I had exactly that problem.
Then I found another at £2035 and they wouldn't let me top up by £35.
I offered to buy a pair of dust caps for £35 and the bike at £2000, but no movement.

[nd0000]

I had a similar thing last year. Carefully found a bike in stock and got a C2W voucher for the full value. Forgot there would be a delivery charge, and the website refused to let me pay that on credit card.

This situation was a bit worrying, because the T&Cs mean you can't refund or change the voucher once issued.

Fortunately in my case I managed to get hold of a human being who pushed the transaction through.

It's still absolutely the best way to buy a bike because of the saving. But go carefully.

[lauda]

I was impressed with Canyon’s process for buying on the C2W scheme. You build your basket with everything you want, go through to checkout, get the full cost including all packaging and delivery charges and then select the cycle voucher as your payment method.

They then reserve all of the items in your basket, you request a voucher for the total value and then just log back in to your account and put the voucher details in once you have it.

Gives total clarity over how much you need to request and also gives you peace of mind that what you want won’t go out of stock whilst you’re waiting for the voucher to be processed.

[joropug]

Anyone used the scheme with decathlon? Went in store and settled on an E ST900 currently 1799.99 - he told me you can top up but you can’t pay less, I.E if the bike dropped in price I’d have to buy £x worth of accessories to make sure it’s all used (nice problem to have)

[joropug]

Cycle to work scheme says you CANNOT top up - probably as you don't own the bike.

I am applying for my voucher but it takes 4-5 weeks to process apparently - which is really annoying as the bike I want is on sale. hoping if it changes price I can work something out or cancel the voucher.