Pruhealth gym loophole Article Discussion

RoyalSwank

I'm moving home soon and the only reasonable looking gym where I'm going is Cannons, but this seems a bit on the expensive side, which brought me to this thread.

I'm not really worried about the health insurance, just want a decent gym discount as soon as poss which I guess means getting to platinum as soon as poss. My gf would probably be keen on doing this with me (and it seems easier to get to platinum as a couple).

PMI Specialist. Could you please outline what my phased costs might look like so I can see how long it takes to be making a saving (including cash back) - you kindly did this for someone a few pages back. Also, how soon might me and my gf be able to get to platinum and how much work / effort would this take? We both go to the gym quite a bit. I'm 32 and she's 36.
Edit: She has 3 children btw if that makes any difference - all 7 and under
Cheers RS

RoyalSwank

PMI Specialist; thanks for the detailed advice. I know you get some stick on this thread, but I appreciate your efforts.
I'll take some time to investigate the vitality points a bit further and talk things through with my GF so I might come back with some more questions.

In the meantime, I assume when I sign up to Cannons it's for a 12 month contract. Will I have to pay a fee if I want to move gyms half way through the contract? What happens if I want to move to another gym that Pru offers a discount on, eg if they suddenly open a Virgin down the road. Does my discount carry over? Can I have discount at more than one gym at the same time?
Cheers, RS

luckyfool

RoyalSwank wrote: »

PMI Specialist; thanks for the detailed advice. I know you get some stick on this thread, but I appreciate your efforts.
I'll take some time to investigate the vitality points a bit further and talk things through with my GF so I might come back with some more questions.

In the meantime, I assume when I sign up to Cannons it's for a 12 month contract. Will I have to pay a fee if I want to move gyms half way through the contract? What happens if I want to move to another gym that Pru offers a discount on, eg if they suddenly open a Virgin down the road. Does my discount carry over? Can I have discount at more than one gym at the same time?
Cheers, RS

PMISpecialist will confirm this for you, but my understanding is that if you sign up through Pruhealth then it is only a month to month contract with the gyms. Thats certainly the case with La Fitness who I'm with. I haven't actually been in about 5 months, having said that as I'm only paying about £2.40 a month for insurance and gym combined I'm not too worried about it.

PMISpecialist_2

RoyalSwank wrote: »

PMI Specialist; thanks for the detailed advice. I know you get some stick on this thread, but I appreciate your efforts.
I'll take some time to investigate the vitality points a bit further and talk things through with my GF so I might come back with some more questions.

In the meantime, I assume when I sign up to Cannons it's for a 12 month contract. Will I have to pay a fee if I want to move gyms half way through the contract? What happens if I want to move to another gym that Pru offers a discount on, eg if they suddenly open a Virgin down the road. Does my discount carry over? Can I have discount at more than one gym at the same time?
Cheers, RS

Hi,

Always nice to be appreciated, thank you.

You can only have one gym membership via Pru. You can't have one Nuffield AND one Virgin or LA Fitness. However that membership could be the Nuffield or LA Fitness Multi standard club membership which can get you membership of all their standard clubs.

The monthly multi standard gym cost is more though: Bronze £62, Silver £50, Gold £34, Platinum £20.

With the contract situation its usually a 12 month contract at the moment, then after the 12 months its month to month. However its a difficult question because you can negiotiate with the manager of the gyms, different gyms and different managers are more flexible/more accomodating than others i.e. i had a client who i advised to negiotiate with the manager because he was moving house in 6 months so the manger of the gym allowed him a 6 month contract instead and some have had month to month contracts.

For the above reasons your better off speaking to the manager of your gym your interested in joining.

RoyalSwank

PMISpecialist wrote: »

Hi,

With the contract situation its usually a 12 month contract at the moment, then after the 12 months its month to month. However its a difficult question because you can negiotiate with the manager of the gyms, different gyms and different managers are more flexible/more accomodating than others i.e. i had a client who i advised to negiotiate with the manager because he was moving house in 6 months so the manger of the gym allowed him a 6 month contract instead and some have had month to month contracts.

For the above reasons your better off speaking to the manager of your gym your interested in joining.

Thanks again.
So my process would be to sign up to Pru, then join Cannons and negotiate my contract terms. How do I link the two up? I thought I read earlier that I had to join the gym through Pru?

mikeyp_2

Hi,
Have tried searching for this on the thread but no luck so wonder if anyone might be able to help. I am wondering how it works with adding a partner on to an individual membership to create a family membership. I am 7 months into an individual membership and have reached platinum status. My partner is thinking of signing up as well for the cheap gym membership and possible Mark Warner Holiday discount. If she joined now would our combined vitality points total be set to my level at present or would I have to start a new family contract and start earning points from zero again ?

PMISpecialist_2

RoyalSwank wrote: »

Thanks again.
So my process would be to sign up to Pru, then join Cannons and negotiate my contract terms. How do I link the two up? I thought I read earlier that I had to join the gym through Pru?

Once you have joined Pruhealth. You then have access to the member zone online, this is where ou can check your points are being allocated and has many different links off it to both score your vitality points (and purchase things like fitbug) and to book vitality rewards i.e. champneys, mark warner, cineworld, Eurostar etc Its just a case of exploring your way round the member zone to get used to it.

Under Get Active there is a link for Nuffield gyms you click on it and you can join that way on line and therefore it is linked up (every time you swipe your gym card at your gym the data is captured by pruhealth and you accrue your points). I would speak to the manager of the gym before you join and get any agreement you come to in writing (via email is fine) just in case, (i.e.if he/she may leave the gym and then you may get into difficulties with the new manager). Remember It may well be the case that the manager will not negiotiate and insists its a 12 month contract. Whatever hapens i would join via the Pru website instructions.

PMISpecialist_2

mikeyp wrote: »

Hi,
Have tried searching for this on the thread but no luck so wonder if anyone might be able to help. I am wondering how it works with adding a partner on to an individual membership to create a family membership. I am 7 months into an individual membership and have reached platinum status. My partner is thinking of signing up as well for the cheap gym membership and possible Mark Warner Holiday discount. If she joined now would our combined vitality points total be set to my level at present or would I have to start a new family contract and start earning points from zero again ?

If you are on say 2250 points, if you add your partner (which you can without starting again) you simply have to score another 750 points = 3000 which is platinum for a couple/family. 5 months should be plenty of time too to get to platinum. Obviously your premium goes up too.

If you are on say 2250 points (platinum for an individual) you add your partner and you are now on a Gold status because you are on a couple/family membership and you need to score another 750 points in your last 5 months of membership.

This table should simplify things:

Status...........Points (single)..............Points (couple family)
Bronze...............0..............................0
Silver.................1000........................1500
Gold..................1500........................2250
Platinum.............2000........................3000

Interestingly because you are platinum now, if you added her when you renew your points go back to 0 beggining of year two but you both start on platinum !

mikeyp_2

Thanks for the reply PMISpecialist. Thats good to know. Do you know how the renewal of the insurance would be affected. My policy is up for renewal in October and as I am on Platinum am expecting a large decrease to around 10 % of what I am currently paying. If I added my partner now to make it a family policy would the renewal date stay as October or run on to 12 months from when policy changed to family ? I guess this would make a big difference to the cost of the policy and whether worth adding her now or after October.

PMISpecialist_2

mikeyp wrote: »

Thanks for the reply PMISpecialist. Thats good to know. Do you know how the renewal of the insurance would be affected. My policy is up for renewal in October and as I am on Platinum am expecting a large decrease to around 10 % of what I am currently paying. If I added my partner now to make it a family policy would the renewal date stay as October or run on to 12 months from when policy changed to family ? I guess this would make a big difference to the cost of the policy and whether worth adding her now or after October.

Yes whatever your premium currently is in your first year, 10% of that premium is a good rough rule of thumb estimate of what it will be when you renew (providing you have stayed claim free and reached platinum of course).

If you added your partner to your scheme, then your renewal date will stay the same as it is now. i.e. your current renewal date will be yours and hers and will not change.

If you add your partner now then she pays the going rate at that time to start with just like you did. This is the case if you add her now or at renewal.

If i were you i'd quite fancy my chances of scoring the 3000 points before October (since your on 2000+ already) and therefore add her asap and only have 4 months paying full premiums for her. If you were to add her from renewal then you would have 12 months of paying full premiums for her + the premiums will be higher in October than they are now too. If you add her now and score the points then come October your both platinum and both only paying around 10% of your premiums. It is better to take the small hit now rather than the big hit later, as you'll end up paying more in the long run if you leave it till renewal.

In theory you could for example score all the 3000 points yourself only add her in September the last month, therefore she only pays one month full premium then renew in October and you both pay around 10% of last years premium. However a risky strategy and you would have to score the vast majority of the points yourself. Plus they tend to calculate your renewal premium offer 32-34 days before your renewal date, so you would have to ask for a recalculation. I personally probably woulden't leave it any later than around 2 months before your renwal date and of course you would have to be very sure you can both score the remaining points needed in the remaining time.