Hi all,
I'm about to buy a new Bird Aeris and noticed they take part payment via cycle2work or equivalent. Yay I thought, as my company use c2w and more importantly Cycle Plus schemes in our benefits, a way to save a few bucks on my build....However, it seems a little bit rubbish on first inspection, if I get the max £1000 voucher, I lose 12% in a surcharge from Bird as apparently they only get £880 of the £1000 as Bike Plus take a commission! Ok I thought, well I supposedly save 30ish % saving on tax and NI, so I'll still save a couple hundred quid....But then I read that after the 18 month 'hire' of the bike, I have to pay a final value charge of 21% of the value to make it mine, i.e. £210. Seems pointless on paper if this is the case, 21% plus 2%= Zero savings!!!
Someone please tell me if I've got this wrong. Some people have said they only paid few quid at the end as a final settlement, some even said they paid nothing! What gives? I'd really like to take advantage of the scheme if it's worth it, has anyone had actual experience with CyclePlus, anyone shed any light please??
Can't speak specifically about Cycle Plus but our scheme charged 10% fee to the vendor which I was not aware of.
The whole issue of what you pay to make the bike yours is really murky however I asked our HR department about it and they said nobody had ever paid a fee after the hire period had ended in about 5 years of running the scheme.
In any case, I did the sums and decided I'd rather just stump up the full cash rather than having joint ownership over my bike. FWIW this was in relation to a Bird Aeris too and I'm glad I didn't use the scheme.
TBH I reckon the scheme works best as intended, to buy a sensible bike for commuting under the £1k limit, not so much as a money saving plan for a leisure bike.