Get Cash In LA Fitness Class Action Settlement
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(It's Holly)
Gyms are notorious for not letting people get out of their membership contract and making it difficult to cancel. Now a settlement has been proposed in the class action lawsuit against LA Fitness for making customers pay a fee to end their contracts before the contract term was up.
To get the cash payout and not just a free 45-day pass, you will have to fill out and return the claim form (PDF).
It's cool too that another effect of the class action would be to have the contract language changed on the LA Fitness contracts, so the class action would actually have some lasting effect on how they do business.
Fitness Service Settlement Website (Thanks to Ben!)
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Joining LA Fitness, to spy on them
When my 24 Hour Fitness membership expired at the start of the year, I was in a quandary about whether to renew, and which package to choose. I didn’t want to do a
2-year Costco membership again
, because that’d be $300 upfront, $600 for me and my wife. And 24 Hour treats the Costco payers as the proverbial stepchild, pretending they don’t exist at the end of the contract. So you can’t haggle with them and get a better deal when the two years are up.
Should I choose the new Crunch or some other gym? After a few months of looking around, I decided to choose LA Fitness.
It has less to do with the roominess of the “Irvine II” location just off the 5 at Jamboree Road. Nor its three dozen elliptical machines and treadmills, ample windows and a nicer locker room than the 24 Hour Sport at Foothill Ranch.
It has more to do with wanting to spy on LA Fitness. The Irvine-based chain has been expanding in Orange County, getting into old Mervyns locations like the one above in Mission Viejo. I reached out to the privately owned company to get an idea of when some of these gyms were opening, and what amenities they would have, but didn’t hear back. I stopped in to the sales office in Mission Viejo, off Alicia, and the guy told me that the owners basically were “anti-media” and that they didn’t think they needed any press to chip away at 24 Hour’s market share.
We’ll see about that. But in the meantime, I’m hoping the people at LAF will open up more to a paying customer than a nosy health blogger. So I’ll find out the details about LAF’s new gyms and report back.
What kind of deal did I get? I should have fought more over the initiation fee, but I paid $149, in return for paying only $24.99 a month (instead of $29.99 with a lower initiation fee). Same monthly dues for my wife, with access to all locations except those in New York state. I skipped the monthly racquetball reservation privileges, Kids Club, guest passes and towel service, which would have inflated the bill.
Whaddya think, readers? Did I choose wisely?