Don't forget the old saying, "there is no such thing as a free lunch"....
BCFT (a long established and quite respectable UK school) recently went bankrupt recently so beware of 'free' offers. No flight training school could ever afford to give away such vast sums. It is clever marketing for sure. Leading Edge state on their website they are willing to give away almost 700,000 pounds in free courses, this cannot be sustainable for any ATO. They will have to fund it with either an incredibly large number of people paying for the assessment, highly improbable, or the scheme will ultimately collapse. As the previous posters suggest, if you were one of the lucky ones I guess it could be looked at like a 300 pound lottery ticket, however, the catch is you have to pass. Cynically, one could imagine the free courses will only be offered when enough have paid! Furthermore, there are bound to be lots of legal clauses which will allow the school to get out of the commitment at any time, just as L3 did when Covid hit, so perhaps it's not quite like winning the lottery.
The history of flight training proves beyond any doubt that profit margins are often slim and companies fold quite frequently. Its also true, some that collapsed were due to dishonesty of the owners....pocket your money and run! The so called 'big 3' maybe able to fund aggressive advertising and marketing campaigns and can take larger risks because they have the financial backing, nevertheless, as history has proven, when they fail to produce the profits demanded by investors, things change quickly and students are left hanging.
The sad thing about flight training is that it takes a lot of investment and a lot of energy to make and sustain a long term business. Often too many schools chasing too few customers, boom to bust is the norm, pilot demand fluctuates and the training industry goes up and down with it. Potential customers are often bewildered by opinions, by the choices, the arguments about the best way forward (modular vs integrated being the big one) and sadly, there are still too many less the honest school owners trying to get their piece of the pie.
My message has been consistent, along with many others on this forum. Airlines will take you if they need pilots and you are up to the task (well trained), so: go modular, keep control, don't pay all up front, don't be dazzled by big is best and don't pay over 100K when you can get it all for 60-70% of that cost, and finally, don't fall for promises which are often smoke and mirrors and clever marketing (lots of schools are trying them), and remember, freebies always cost money someone ultimately has to pay..
SJ