Guide

How do you choose a mileage allowance you will not regret?

Updated October 2026 6 min read Performance & Prestige

Start from evidence, not estimates: your last two MOT readings give your real annual mileage in one sum. Add any change of circumstance, add the journeys people forget, then add a margin. Buying miles inside the quote costs less than buying them afterwards, so round up rather than down.

Where do you find your real annual mileage?

From your MOT history, which records the odometer at every test and is free to look up with a registration number. Subtract the reading at one test from the reading at the next and you have a measured year, not an impression of one.

Do it for the last two or three years rather than one. A single year can be distorted by a house move, a long trip or a period when you barely drove, and the pattern across three is a better predictor than the most recent one.

Almost everyone who does this discovers they were wrong. The common direction is underestimating, because the journeys you remember are the long ones and the miles you actually do are the short ones.

Which journeys do people forget?

Four, reliably, and together they are often the difference between an allowance that works and one that does not.

The commute, counted properly. Round trip, times the days you actually go in, times the weeks you actually work.
The regular obligation. Family, a second home, a sport, a standing appointment. Small distances, high frequency.
The unplanned year. A relative who becomes ill, a job that changes, a friend who moves away.
The reason you leased this car. People drive an interesting car more than they drove the last one. That is the point of it.

The last of those is the one nobody budgets for and almost everybody does.

How do you build the number?

Work it up from the parts rather than picking a round figure that sounds right.

Take the commute first: a thirty-mile round trip, three days in the office, forty-four working weeks, is just under four thousand miles before you have done anything else. Add the regular runs at their real frequency. Add a realistic holiday or two. Add the weekend driving you are planning to do, honestly.

Then compare the total with your MOT-derived figure. If your built-up number is far below your measured history, you have left something out — go back and find it. If it is far above, you are probably double-counting a journey.

Finally, add a margin. Not a large one, but enough that an ordinary surprise does not put you over.

What is the cost of getting it wrong in each direction?

They are not symmetrical, and that asymmetry should decide which way you round.

Too small, and you pay the excess rate on every mile above the line. Across this catalogue that runs 95p to £10 a mile, which accumulates quickly and is charged at the end when you have no way to change it.

Too large, and you have paid a slightly higher monthly figure for miles you did not use. Unused miles are not refunded and do not carry over, so the money is gone — but it was a smaller amount, spread across the term, and you knew about it at the time.

A modest overestimate costs a little and is predictable. A modest underestimate costs more and arrives as a bill. Round up.

Does a shorter agreement make this easier?

Considerably, and it is the under-appreciated advantage of a short minimum term.

Estimating your mileage over three years is a forecast about a life you have not lived yet. Over three months it is close to a description of the life you are living now. The forecasting error shrinks with the horizon.

Every agreement here includes 1,000 miles a month, and the minimum term is three months. That is a far smaller bet on your own predictions than a 30,000-mile commitment over a three-year contract, and if you turn out to be wrong you are wrong by three months rather than by thirty-six.

What if the standard allowance is not enough?

Say so at the enquiry stage and it is priced into the quote instead of being settled afterwards.

That is not a courtesy, it is arithmetic. Miles bought inside an agreement are part of a monthly figure; miles bought afterwards are a correction to value that has already gone. The first is nearly always the cheaper of the two.

It also puts the number on the agreement you sign. An allowance agreed in an email and not reflected in the contract is not an allowance, and the document is what will be read at collection. Check that the figure you discussed is the figure written down.

Should the car change the number?

Your mileage should set the allowance, but the car should tell you how much precision matters.

On a car with a low excess rate, being a couple of thousand miles out is an irritation. On a supercar at the top of the range, the same error is a materially different sum. The rate is published on every car’s page, so the consequence of being wrong is visible before you choose.

There is a behavioural point too, and it works the other way round from what people expect. A car that is a pleasure to drive gets driven. If you are moving from something you tolerated to something you actively want to take the long route in, your historical mileage is an underestimate of your future one.

What should you do once the agreement has started?

Check the odometer against a straight line, every couple of months. The allowance is 1,000 miles a month, so the line is a thousand miles for every month you have had the car, and a glance at the dashboard tells you whether you are above or below it.

If you are running ahead, you have options while the miles are still in front of you — ask whether the allowance can be adjusted, or change how you use the car. Once the miles are driven, there is nothing left to decide.

Nobody is ever surprised by an excess mileage invoice they could have seen coming. The surprise is always the consequence of never looking.

Common questions

What counts as a high mileage for a lease?

It is relative to the allowance rather than an absolute figure — the number that matters is whether you are above or below the line you agreed. What is high for one agreement is comfortably inside another, and the only relevant comparison is with your own contract.

Can I check my mileage history if I have changed cars?

Yes, if you have the registrations. The MOT record follows the vehicle, so pulling the readings for each car you have run and adding the periods together reconstructs your own history even across several vehicles.

Does a business lease usually need a bigger allowance?

Often, because business driving is more predictable and more frequent than personal driving. The useful exercise is the same one: take the measured history rather than the impression, and price the allowance into the quote.

Do you offer more than 1,000 miles a month?

Tell us at the enquiry stage what you actually need and it is priced into the quote rather than charged afterwards. The standard allowance on every car here is 1,000 miles a month, and anything above it is a conversation before the agreement, not after it.

Should I pick the allowance before or after choosing the car?

Work out your mileage first, because it is a fact about you rather than about the car. Then let the car’s published excess rate tell you how much margin to build in, since the cost of being wrong differs sharply across the catalogue.