Sure. €15,000 for 150 hours but I ended up doing almost 200 without any further demands from the airline. I was 30. I started flying privately over 10 years before that.
I put an application in with other airlines whilst still in line training. Interview came 2 weeks after finishing line training, started 3 months later. Again all in 2011/2012.
The expanded history if you're interested is below. I am a Londoner with a family to feed so there's not much by way of aviation employment I can consider. The FI strategy would never work for someone like me, aka "We're not all in the same boat with regards our life situation".
Year 2000 = PPL
Year 2001-(2011) = A career in IT
Year 2005-2006 = Part time ATPL Theory (still in full time employment)
Year 2007-2008 = Part time CPL, ME, IR, MCC (still in full time employment)
Year 2008 = First interview for jet position (failed)
Year 2009 = A320 SSTR
Year 2009-2011 = Full time employment
Year 2011 = Second interview for TP position in Asia (passed) but salary doesn't cover even 25% of bills (by now I have a family and a home)
Year 2011-2012 = A320 P2F
Year 2012 = First paid job (perm)
Year 2013 = Walked away from first job due unable to relocate family. Third interview (passed) but opportunity got deferred to the following year so no flying during 2013.
Year 2014 = Second paid job (contract) again away from home
Year 2015 = Two more interview opportunities this time with local airlines (passed both). Third paid job (perm) starting now. First time flying from home city.
The type of P2F program you took falls into what some of us consider reasonable. 15000€ for a type rating and 200 hours on type is, in my opinion, training costs and, let me tell you, a
great opportunity. Most IR courses are more expensive than that.
Problematic P2F programs are, in my opinion, those that cost more than what it actually costs to get a TR course and whereby the airline is clearly taking advantage of a vocational pilot by using his money to cover operational costs. If you're paying 60.000€ for a P2F program, you're not paying for training alone, you're financing the company to the point that the airline will never consider hiring pilots again.
I got my PPL in the year 2000 when I was 18. Then I had to stop training and flying altogether until very recently. I'm 32 years old now and only have my PPL and ATPL exams. Basically I'm a late re-starter. I'm considering the FI route and would never go for one of those unethical P2F programs. Now, if I were offered a TR with time on type for 15000€, I'd go for it. I hope they're still available when I become eligible. If I was still 23 years old, I probably wouldn't.
Maybe a solution for this whole problem would be to set a type limitation, a maximum price, a maximum number of applicants per year per operator and a maximum amount of hours on type. That way it would be an honest training program.