Apologies for the slight thread drift...
About this time last year when I was planning my CPL/IR training, I narrowed it down to two modular establishments in the UK located pretty close to each other, both quality schools with good equipment and instructors and good reputations.
When it came to talking money with the first school, they were quite insistant that they would require the full amount for the IR (in excess of £10k) up-front at the start of the course. It was made clear that this was not negotiable and that paying in installments was not an option.
The second school was happy for me to employ a 'pay as you go' philosophy; as long as I walked out of the door every day with my account in the black they were happy.
I was absolutely not prepared to give an FTO such a large amount of money up-front and so I went with the second school (and I was extremely happy with them as it goes). I put funds on account in chunks at a time and never had much money sitting on account for long periods, an arrangement I was much more comfortable with.
A year ago, the first school weren't prepared to budge on their policy of paying the whole amount up-front, even when I said that I would be forced to take my business elsewhere which I subsequently did. I wonder if this would still be the case now or whether there would be more room for leverage!