Tips & Advise to get the best gym membership (Gyms - General)

Member Name: Logan33

Product:	Gyms - General
Date:	31/01/09 (107 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Save lots of money

Disadvantages: none

Here's some inside info on Fitness First and how to get the upper hand:
Follow these rules to get the best membership rates.

1) suggest your really keen to join TODAY but you don't want to pay the joining fee. FF sales staff are not targetted on joining fee's so will waver this completely if they think you will join that day.
2) You will always have to pay the admin fee, this is a clever fee designed by the fitness industry as a whole to get more money out of you. sorry
3)Join right at the end of a month. The sales staff are desperate to hit their targets and will give you all sorts of reductions (many will put you onto a reduced corporate rate to get the sale even if you don't work for a large corporate company! I've even known some to put people onto an Off-peak membership but give them full use of the gym (This does flag-up at reception but the reception team will not quiz it because it happens all the time!)
4) Ask the sales team for free passes, they will hand them out like confetti if they think they'll get a sale out of it
5) Just before you join, ask for free passes and sunbeds. The sales person WILL throw these in if they think it will get them the sale.
6) THE BIG ONE ....getting out of your contract within your first 12 months. Anyone that has tried this will have found its air tight. however here's the small print you didn't read.
a) You have a 30 day money back guarantee which if your not happy you can exercise. This is never mentioned by the sales people but is in operation.
b) you can quit if you say your moving house and the place your moving to DOES NOT have a fitness first within a 5 MILE radius. Its in the contract so make use of it.
c) if you suffer injury and cannot train you can legally terminate you membership provided you have a doctors note.........good time to be friends with someone in the NHS or medical student.

Some gyms do do smaller contract lengths but they are not very cost effective, nearly all gyms work off of 12 month contracts. To cancel the contract at the end of 12 months you just put it in writing in the last month (i.e month 11 if you want to quit after a year). Check that your direct debit has been cancelled. The gym should do this but on countless occassions I've seen them forget, so do it yourself if needs be. (just be aware, if you cancel your direct debit before your 12 month contract is up, you WILL get debt collectors chasing you!

7) if you work for a big company, you can get a free membership at FF if you negotiate a deal with the sales staff to Promote FF within your company. This is a farce because usually you only need to get 7+ people to join which generally occurs out of luck more than your own efforts! You can also apply for a reduced corporate rate if 5+ people from your own company are willing to join.

Some other tips:

If you are looking to join a gym, make sure you visit on a monday or tuesday at about 6pm. This is the busiest time for gyms and will give a fair reflection of how busy it will get (remember the sales person will never say it gets busy.....instead they usually say "its popular" a sneaky way to make it look a positive rather than a negative)

If you like classes, ask them about waiting lists. Most classes can only take about 25/30 people depending on the size of the gym. popular classes like spinning and yoga often get full and if this is what you like doing, CHECK YOU CAN GET ON THE CLASS before you join.

Check for hidden costs. These usually take the format of Classes costing extra, extra for towel hire and extra to put your clothes in a locker! Always worth asking just to be sure, you don't want any nasty suprises!

If you are being shown around, ask a member of the gym their opnion rather than any of the gym staff (no matter who they are). All gym staff members are geared up in sales, so they will always try to sell it to you positively whereas a member will give a fair appraisal.

I hope some of this helps, I love keeping fit but hate getting ripped off, I hope this saves you all some money.

PS Comes as know suprise to read about levels of customer service going down once you've joined. FF are well known for this as they are a top heavy organisation (basically they concentrate more on getting new customers in rather than keeping the ones they've got happy! The proof of this is they're one of the only companies in the industry who do not employ something called a retention manager (someone who looks after the current members to keep them happy).
Good Luck

Summary: This should help you beat the sales person!