MSE News: Final nail in PruHealth's free gym offer

fartington

Im a platinum member and get free gym and pru premiums for £5.50 pm, can I ask
1/ can I keep my premiums this low if I start fitbug upon renewal?
2/ Is it possible to stay on platinum with just fitbug?
3/ I thought that certain nuffield screens eg. fitness or chol test/ measuremenets/heart rate, were free, even after you leave the gym? Im sure I read that somewhere

Ironmokey

Copy and pasted from the Pruheath pop up.


LA Fitness have more than 85 clubs all over the UK. To find your nearest LA Fitness club click on the ‘Gym prices’ tab above.
How much will I pay?

Your Vitality discount gives you 25% off the usual price for Club Peak membership, which lets you use one chosen LA Fitness gym. There’s normally a £25 activation fee when you join.
LA Fitness special offer 25% + 25% off

LA Fitness are currently offering an extra 25% discount on Premier membership. This discount is on top of the 25% Vitality discount you already get with our gym partners - which means you can get a total of 50% off the usual price for 12 months.
Premier membership lets you use almost every LA Fitness club nationwide* - giving you the flexibility to work out anywhere whatever your lifestyle.
There’s no 12 month gym contract, no activation fee plus when you join you get an LA Fitness ‘Experience’ pack worth £100.
Your pack will include information on getting the most out of your gym membership, nutritional advice and all this free:

• 5 free guest passes worth £50
• Free personal training voucher worth £35
• Kit bag worth £20
• LA Fitness sweat towel
• LA Fitness water bottle

Vitality points

We’ll give you 10 Vitality points for each gym visit; we’ll count one visit per day and you can earn up to a maximum of 40 points each week. Make sure you swipe your card at the entrance and keep track of your visits with your (deleted link).
* Unfortunately, the South Kensington club in not eligible for this offer and we can’t offer membership outside the UK through our Vitality programme.

deccie

Following Ironmokey's post above I made enquiries at my local LA Fitness club yesterday and they presented me with 2 pruhealth membership options neither of which correspond with the advertised deal. The Premier membership was £40 (not a 50% discount as gym standard cost is £60pm) and this was on a 12 month contract - the advertised deal says 'no 12 month gym contract'.

Have spoken with Pruhealth who weren't helpful. The lady told me that it had to be done online and through the Pruhealth site. It didn't have the option there, so she then told me that it had to be done online through the LA fitness site directly - option not there either. She had no access to the sites herself, and was not able to make outgoing calls to LA fitness on my behalf! Not much use!

Her parting advice was to sign up for membership at the club and when I had a membership number to give to Pruhealth the deal as advertised would kick in. The gym however, have been very clear that their standard Premier membership is on a 12 month contract so I'm reluctant to do this as I may well be locked in.

Has anyone had any success with signing up for this LA Fitness deal?

nednoodle

I have been a member of Pruhealth for 4 years, my renewal is end of October. I have been enjoying free gym membership all this time and have recently visited Champneys which was AMAZING. Have received their wonderful new terms and conditions which as other members have commented remove most of the incentives of the scheme. However thanks to a forthcoming sceening I will soon have enough points to continue being a Platinum member for the next year and this will allow me 100% discount off next years premium (just for 2011, then it gets really expensive), so I have decided that I should carry on with it for now. The main reason is I want to go to Champney's again! I will be cancelling my gym membership as it is cheaper to go direct (so much for the 25% discount.)

Okay,thats the background. What I am really upset about is that my base rate has been quoted as over £600 with a £1000 excess(before my discount) yet when I pretend I am a new customer, the quotation is only £300 with £0 excess so much for looking after loyal customers! If I was only a silver level member, I would be paying more than a new customer. Although most of the other terms and conditions have changed, the higher excess on my old policy has interestingly has remained the same (probably because this is the one T&C that has improved in the new policy).

I have written to Pruhealth asking them to explain this discrepancy. All they have managed to do so far is to send me another copy of the new terms and conditions (the 4th I have received). I would urge all Pruhealth policy holders to check their policies if they are carrying on with their membership, if you a gold member or below, you may be better off cancelling and starting afresh as a new member or at least kicking up a fuss about the differences in price.

I will continue to press Pruhealth for an explanation...

west12_2

They're changing Pruhealth again as of March 1st it appears.

From the Guardian writeup, it appears 50% gym discounts could be back --- for Virgin and LA Fitness.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/jan/23/pruhealth-overhauls-scheme

west12_2

Hi guys

Pruhealth have unveiled the new plan (!!!) on their website, I checked today.

https://www.pruhealth.co.uk/

They've overhauled it entirely (AGAIN). It's as complicated as it ever was, but basically:

- You now will pay for standard, basic insurance
- You can pay for bolt ons, like dental care and travel insurance
- You can pay for a Vitality+ bolt on
- The Vitality+ bolt on costs £5.80 a month, and adding this will get you 50% off Virgin and LA Fitness plus the discounts at Cineworld, Eurostar, etc etc.

It sounds like they've kinda listened (after ruining it this last year and aggrieving everyone!) but let's wait and see.....

Musicman

That is all very well, but no mention of Nuffield Health as a gym provider.

I suppose we shall just have to wait & see.

pself

I really dont want to change from Nuffield Health to Virgin but if Virgin will be cheaper its still nice so will have to be done. I wonder how vitality and Mark Warner will work as a result as much as I have mocked some of the discounts I rather like the holidays!

Musicman

pself wrote: »

I really dont want to change from Nuffield Health to Virgin but if Virgin will be cheaper its still nice so will have to be done. I wonder how vitality and Mark Warner will work as a result as much as I have mocked some of the discounts I rather like the holidays!

Well where I live there is no LA Fitness or Virgin gyms within 10 miles whereas the Nuffield Health is local, so it looks like I will be leaving Prihealth if this is the case.

rajessex

Hi all,

Just wanted to share my experience with PruHealth gym offer (with LAFitness).

Until Oct 2010 I used to have free gym at La Fitness as I had Platinum vitality status. From then onwards I was charged ~£35 a month (which they said represented a 25% d/c on the normal rates).

From this month they increased the price to £45 (without any prior notification I might add!) and so I spoke to LaFitness to ask them whether their rates had also gone up by £10.

They informed me that their rates have been the same since Jan 2011 and thus the increase has been on the side of PruHealth.

I promptly stopped my gym membership through Pru and low and behold LaFitness called today to get me on a new scheme whereby as a Barclaycard customer if I pre-pay a year's membership it comes to £295 (£24.60 a month!) There is no joining fee and represents a far better deal. So to all PruHealth members using the gym I urge you to review your current arrangement and try signing up separately - you're likely to get a much better deal!