In reply to Max factor:
>My example, bought a £500 bike, on sale with 10% off = £450. Our company work scheme had negotiated a 15% off deal with Halfords as the preferred provider, so that £450 bike costs me £382. I pay that back over 4 years, and then save tax on that amount, so in effect it's £306 if you're a basic rate taxpayer or £230 if you're a higher rate taxpayer.
Interesting. Admittedly its been a while since I looked at the C2W scheme and even then it was only out of interest as a colleague's son was doing it but the companies that administer these schemes charge the bicycle shops a 'fee' which meant they were all charging full retail price to customers. The most honest/transparent retailer appears to be PlanetX who say....
"We keep our prices competitive by selling at very low margins. All of these third-party organisations charge us a fee on each bike we supply to a customer for administering the scheme on behalf of your employer. An admin fee of 10% applies with cyclescheme.co.uk, On Your Bike and Bike2work vouchers, as well as Salary Extras. A 12% fee applies with Cycle Plus vouchers and a 12.5% fee applies with the NHS SME HCI scheme."
A quick look shows that pretty much every bike shop is currently showing many bikes as "on sale". Evans even has 25% off almost all Specialized inc. the top of the range di2 S-Works Tarmac's. It makes these cycle to work schemes seem very very poor value for money.