Prepayment

[douglasheld]

Hello all,

Is it normal to take prepayment for an instructive General Aviation flight?

Twice now, I am registering myself for a VFR flight with an instructor, and they want to take full payment beforehand to secure the booking.

During my PPL training I prepaid part of the fee, in exchange for an enormous discount. But in all other cases, I have been asked to pay when the flight is complete.

What's the norm?

[what next]

What's the norm? I would say, as you write: Prepay, but in exchange of a substantial discount or pay afterwards, but with no discount. Never heard anything else (apart from a couple of individuals who are known to be "difficult payers" and who will only fly if they pay in advance).

[douglasheld]

Thanks.

In the end, I negotiated with my vendor what I think is a fair upfront booking fee - 15%. The rest, on flying day.

[silverknapper]

Was there nowhere else you could go? I would have walked away. Suggest you take the flight quickly. Set ups that operate like that are normally going out of business.

[Good Business Sense]

If it's just the one flight that you re booking it will be because of the large numbers of people who book things and don't turn up/cancel last minute - leaving you with a possible financial loss due to an empty slot/empty restaurant table etc.

Try booking a hotel room/airline ticket without paying upfront.

[Booglebox]

For a trial flying lesson, this is fairly common, but not for regular training.

[incipientspin]

As others have said, if you're pre paying ask for a discount or only lay down a nominal sum as a deposit each time.

All i can add is if you're going to pre pay, do it with a credit card to protect yourself incase the company should go out of Business.
I saw a lot of good guys lose a lot of money years ago when they paid up front (without credit card) for their CPL training and SFT went bust.