'Cycle to work' scheme calculations

Guile

I want to get a £750 bike from Halfords on this scheme.

Bike = £750
Wait for Halfords 10% sale = £675

£30k salary means 12 net salary payments of £38.25 (based on £750 list price) = £459

Buy £459 Halfords vouchers with 10% discount and 3.03% topcashback rebate = £396.87

Order £675 worth of bike - get 3.03% TCB rebate again = total payment of £376.42

Did I just get a £750 bike for £376.42 before factoring in the buy back amount from my employer at the end of scheme?

With regards to the buy back from employer, can I just get them to lease me the bike for about 4 years which means that I will pay nothing to them at the end of that period. I don't think my company will be interested in screwing me over for around £180 final payment.

Have I got this correct?

The Rookie

No, for starters the 10% sale is meaningless as it's either a £750 bike or a £675 bike, it can't be both to make your calcs look good!

Not sure how you think you'll get cashback/discount on a C2W voucher deal either, but not looked into that, it sounds very unlikely though, after all you won't be buying the vouchers your company (directly or via a scheme - probably Halfords own) will be.

The scheme cannot under the rules of R2W) commit to selling or extending the lease at the end of the one year, they can state they make make an offer to, nor can they just give you the bike as that is a criminal offence by you both (avoiding paying tax due).

Long_Time_Lurker

I didn't think that retailers redeem vouchers against bikes that are on sale. (Or is that up to the individual retailer?)
And I don't know how that works for Halford's - they seem to have sales on all year around.

Anyway - the point I am trying to make is that sometimes it is cheaper to buy a 2 year old bike than the latest model - and recently for MTBs that means a better specced bike too.

Red.Devil.Ghost

It means you will get £750s worth of bike and equipment for £459. You won't be able to get the extra discounts etc.

But bear in mind, you will still need to make the same payments, whether you use all the voucher or not. So I would advise that actually get a really good bike and spend little on the accessories (unless you really want to get everything).

Bearing in mind I think you have just 3 months to use the voucher, wait until something around £900 makes it down to £750 or so. Then use your Cycle 2 Work voucher, and you can get what was a £900 bike for £459! This is essentially what Long Time Lurker is saying, just with some numbers in there.

I wanted to get a new bike on Cycle 2 Work, but started in April and due to the size of my company, they only do the scheme in March. I was miffed to say the least! However my gf has just got herself a decent hybrid bike and plenty of accessories using a £450 voucher (I think she will actually pay around £300-320 or something like that).

The Rookie

Some retailers will redeem R2W vouchers against bikes on sale, bare in mind that unless this is a company self run scheme (when many of them usual 'rules' go out the window), if he's looking at Halfords it's on Halfords own scheme, so it will be in the T&C's on Halfords website.

Red.Devil.Ghost

When I looked at it myself, both the company I work and the one my partner work for (completely separate and no links) use Evans Cycles. When we went there to have an actual look at some bikes instead of just online, they didn't mention anything about not being able to buy sale bikes - and a couple of the bikes that we looked at were in the sale. Evans knew from the start we were getting something on the C2W scheme as well.

But worth checking out I suppose before you get your sights set on a particular bike.

cookeeemonster

I bought my cycle to work bike in the sale (from Evans). No questions asked.

You buy the voucher and pay the payments against that - regardless of whether you use it all or not (so use it all )

I had to use it all at the same time though...and as I picked it up late it gave me 10 minutes to buy £80 of accessories etc which I hadn't researched at all as I thought I could spend the rest of the voucher another day...doh!

surrey_commuter

Evans will also pricematch against most of the big online retailers.

Using dodgy maths you should be able to persuade yourself that you have made a profit