Yep, it’s a pretty hard one to swallow this. Our first CM demanded full wack whilst on holiday too – see my original (now closed) post here.
She needs (targets) to earn £xx thousands of pounds a year. If you can find a childminder who doesn’t charge for holidays, then she’s either adding that money to your normal bill, or she’s struggling for clients (read not very good).
So you just gotta suck it up!
Whilst I can see how easy it is to agree with your sentiment, what you’re actually stating is complete BS. Little monkey is now in the care of an awesome CM (30 years in the game) recommended to us by a friend and everyone who knows her at the local pre-school nursery. She charges half the local going rate, won’t accept anything for when she OR we are on hols, and only asks to be paid for the time she does. So if we were to pick monkey up at say 3:00 instead of 5:30, she wouldn’t expect us to fork out for the ‘un-used’ 2.5hrs … I would still pay the full wack in that instance though because she’s great and we’re fortunate to have her.
EDIT: Also, there was one occasion where she was rushed to hospital overnight and couldn’t take monkey the following day. Her daughters, who are both lovely (and in their 30s) stepped in and looked after him for the duration. They both have kids aged 1-5yrs and they all get on great.