School & “block time” discount

Posted by Final-Muscle-7196@reddit | flying | View on Reddit | 17 comments

Hey guys. My school this year is offering “block time” discounts. Essentially. Prepay 3-10k upfront and receive about 5% discount. I like pay as you go. Clean and simple. And saying 8$ / hr on the clock, to me… isn’t much for tying up a decent amount of change. My ultimate question is, is this a sign the school is struggling. I’ve heard many retail outlets love Christmas time because buying gift cards is like free investment loans for the company.

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17 Comments

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PlanetMcFly@reddit

The only time it makes sense to prepay is when the savings are significant, 10% or more, when you can afford to lose it, and when you’re burning through it fast, like every month. I did this with one school while getting my complex endorsement. A 135 per hour Arrow became 120, 1k at a time.

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BerMalBerIst@reddit

Agreed with others on it not being too significant of a discount, but I will say it also depends how much you trust the school (assuming you’ve been flying with them long enough to feel it out) and how much you’re flying. If you’re spending 3k a month on lessons, saving 5% over paying full price could be worth the risk (assuming you believe the risk is small). Back when I trained my flight school gave 10% off 1k+ deposits, so after I took a few lessons and felt pretty safe I started prepaying. When I really got into my time building I started putting even more down (maybe 4-5k max at a time - definitely not 10k to be fair) since I was sometimes flying 10-20+ hours a week, but at that point I had (almost) no concerns about my school going under. I did that until just before I finished up my CFII - paid for the final few flights normally to make sure I didn’t “waste”/pay for hours I didn’t need at the end.

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lctalbot@reddit

I think I got around a $10-15/hr discount for mine, but the minimum was only $500. I'd usually pay $1-2k every so often as I went. $3-10K?!? for 5%!?! No thanks. >I’ve heard many retail outlets love Christmas time because buying gift cards is like free investment loans for the company. Rumor has it at one point, a few years back, Starbucks was the largest bank in the world, due to all their outstanding pre-sold cards.

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redditburner_5000@reddit

Pay only what you're willing to lose if they close their doors tomorrow. That happens.

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OrionX3@reddit

It depends to me on the minimum for the discount. Most of my students were doing $1000 increments anyway, and my school offered $3k deposit block time incentives of somewhere in that 5-10% savings range. The thought was if you're gonna spend that anyway might as well just do that and save a little money. No, I wouldn't say it's a sign of the school struggling though. I know we did it to help front some cash to do some avionics upgrades.

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BandicootNo4431@reddit

I've done block time discounts if I'm flying a lot. Usually I bought 10 hour blocks and flew it off in a month. The risk is a lot bigger to buy a 50 hour block that will take you a whole year to burn off. I saved about $10/hour on a 172 doing it, so the $100 was worth it to me to "loan" the School $1700 or so for a month.

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TxAggieMike@reddit

5% isn’t enough incentive for me to “risk” $3000 plus.

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shaftman14@reddit

Never prepay for block time. Don’t even consider it for a measly 5% discount. It’s impossible to say if they’re struggling until it’s likely too late. But- if you don’t buy block time then you’re not really at any financial risk. If the school folds, take your hours somewhere else and just keep moving forward there.

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PullDoNotRotate@reddit

My place gave me something like 20-30 bucks off per hour on it (mind you, this was in the dinosaur days where a Seminole was a mere $230/hr).

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shaftman14@reddit

I bet that same Seminole is still flying!

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PullDoNotRotate@reddit

I wish. They actually crashed the thing not long after I finished up, which had more to do with their downfall than anything that was actually 'wrong' businesswise.

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Daliwallaby@reddit

Pay as you go with a Credit Card that collects points (miles). Whatever percent discount they offer you essentially what you’d be getting building credit and miles. I went through PPL to CFI and was able to have two free round trip tickets to Europe from California when all was said and done. Ps. Be careful. Schools can close and not reimburse you. Also, be aware that it’s illegal for a flight school to take more than 2,500 up front in california because of that fact.

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throwaway642246@reddit

That’s a very small savings for purchasing block time. For example, one of the clubs I teach out of in Mesa, AZ offers block discounts that bring rental cost from $180/hr to $160/hr, or like $300/hr to $270/hr for the fancier airplanes. Saving $20-30 per hour can really stack up if you buy 50hrs of time, 50x300=$15000, whereas 50x270=13,500 and gets you a “free” 5.6 hours of flight time. The “deal” you are getting 50x160=8,000 vs 50x170=8,500 gets you a “free” 2.5 ish hours. Whether or not that is worth it is up to you, but in aviation you spend $1300 on a headset, $400 on an iPad, $250 on a foreflight subscription, and so on, that “free” 2.5hrs kinda comes out in the wash.

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RaiseTheDed@reddit

It may not necessarily mean the school is struggling, some schools always offer it (a school near me does). The school I worked at would offer block deals for the Mooney when they had it (had it pre TAA, but this was post TAA, so not many flew it) just to get it flying more. So, it may or may not mean the school is struggling. Just depends. I'm sure there are schools that have offered it, got some cash deposits, and then closed.

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PullDoNotRotate@reddit

I wouldn't pay anything more than you can simply afford to part with (in exchange for nothing, mind you—this is how this tends to go when a place goes nipples vertical) in advance. (This was how I did it in the dinosaur days. One of the schools I went to actually did go out of business shortly after I finished the rating in question and had exhausted the block I bought.) You can't necessarily infer that the place is struggling just because they're offering that, however.

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jumpifnotequal@reddit

general consensus is avoid. in this case i’d say especially for only $8. could be a bad sign, could be nothing - but id say no.

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rFlyingTower@reddit

This is a copy of the original post body for posterity: --- Hey guys. My school this year is offering “block time” discounts. Essentially. Prepay 3-10k upfront and receive about 5% discount. I like pay as you go. Clean and simple. And saying 8$ / hr on the clock, to me… isn’t much for tying up a decent amount of change. My ultimate question is, is this a sign the school is struggling. I’ve heard many retail outlets love Christmas time because buying gift cards is like free investment loans for the company. --- Please downvote this comment until it collapses. --- I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. If you have any questions, please [contact the mods of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/flying).