The control of money is down to the customer, all Customers should make a stand via national press and say NO to handing over the money that the industry says they want.
Why should the customer pay in advance for so long before they take the hoilday.

Can anyone other than Peter M & J Drewls give me a compelling reason why we the Customer need to pay so far in Advance.

Because many of the suppliers, i e hotels, airlines, etc do demand payment before providing any services like part- or full airline charters, guaranteed hotel allocations or exclusivity, simples!

And, of course, that fact that the big boys will only trade with suppliers on monthly credit terms, and there's nothing the suppliers can do about it, except refuse to sell to them (as if!). This nullifies the pipeline protection that Abta's retail bond would otherwise provide. So, the agents merrily collect full payment in spite of the suppliers selling on a deposit basis, and therefore still only pay the tour operator / supplier per their balance due date. The customer is protected (yay!) but the supplier is not. So, the concept of pipeline monies is totally nonsensical.

The collection of balances up to 18 months ahead of travel is the real issue. With promises of discounts if they paid early, no customers seem to have asked why they were being asked to pay so soon, and no operators, if they knew about the practice, said a word. For some operators, the loss per booking runs into the tens of thousands when they expected no more than the loss of deposit. If there is no control over when customers are asked to pay, many more operators are going to push for direct sales, and it will be the travel agency community that loses as a result